


The Imbalance Of Power

by Cerdic519



Series: The British Revolution [2]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: 17th Century, Army, Crushes, Denmark - Freeform, Embarrassment, England (Country), English Civil War, F/M, Fifeshire, France (Country), Friendship, Gay Sex, Germany, Inheritance, London, Love, M/M, Marriage, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Nobility, Northumberland, Parliament (UK), Period Typical Attitudes, Politics, Rape (non-graphic mention), Religion, Rescue, Reunions, Royalty, Scheming, Scotland, Servants, Spain, Spies & Secret Agents, Stucky - Freeform, Sweden - Freeform, The Netherlands, Thirty Years War, Unplanned Pregnancy, War Crimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 33,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25071313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: March 1625 to December 1631.Stephen Amerike finds life in rural south-west Northumberland boring. He wishes for some excitement in his humdrum existence – and unfortunately for him, he is about to get it! His teenage crush will be rent from him and he himself will be dispatched first to London for the new king's disastrous parliaments, then to Scotland to run the family estates while all the time worrying about his Winter Soldier over in Germany – when will he see him again? Come to that, will he see him again?He will.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, minor Thor/OMC
Series: The British Revolution [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1809640
Comments: 20
Kudos: 22





	1. Contents

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InsatiableFanfictionLurker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsatiableFanfictionLurker/gifts).



> The main story starts here; the Prologue is just background information for those who like to get a flavour of a very different – well, perhaps not that different – time.  
> 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contents page.

A.D. 1625  
 _1\. I Know What You Did Last Christmas_  
 _2\. Ups And Downs_  
 _3\. Useless And Embarrassing_

A.D. 1626   
_4\. Plus Ça Change_   
_5\. Cleaning Up_   
_6\. Winning The Lottery_   
_7\. Your True And Loving Friend_

A.D. 1627   
_8\. Lateness And Lances_   
_9\. Give And Take_

A.D. 1628   
_10\. Third Time's The Charm?_   
_11\. Death On Display_

A.D. 1629   
_12\. The Look Of Loathing_   
_13\. Back In Time_

A.D. 1630  
 _14\. Old World, New World_  
 _15\. Words Of Wisdom_  
 _16\. Seventeenth Century Attitudes_

A.D. 1631   
_17\. Crime And Punishment_   
_18\. Homecoming_   
_19\. A Night To Remember_

MDCXXV-MDCXXXI


	2. I Know What You Did Last Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, it had been Christmas, there was this girl, someone with the initials S.R.A. had wanted to prove himself a man, and..... you know. Things, they just sort of happened.   
> Then three months later....

**March 1625**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

Staward was one of those out of the way places where nothing much ever happened, and given what the country had been through in the past century, that had become a lot more appreciated of late. Situated at the top of the Pennine Chain that formed the backbone of Northern England, it lay in the Allen Valley, a tributary of the Tyne into which its river flowed near the market town of Hexham which in turn lay roughly midway between the important towns of Carlisle on the west coast and Newcastle on the east. Thankfully the good relations that Great Elizabeth had established with her future successor King James The Sixth of Scotland (who had succeeded to the English crown on her death in 1603 as King James The First) had put an end to the Border raids that had once ravaged the area, and today Hexhamshire was quiet. 

All right, that 'putting an end' had involved hanging or deporting several hundred of the Border reivers who had been unwilling to settle down under the new peaceful regime, but then there you were.

It was also no longer a shire in its own right, having lost its status back in 1572 as an indirect consequence of the Reformation, the great prince-bishops of Durham no longer needing to be reined in. However the principle family of the former county, the Amerikes (yes, distant cousins to the famous Richard Amerike who would have a continent named after him) remained important and still exercised their right to send someone of their choosing to the parliament¹ over three hundred miles away in London so as to make sure that the area's (their) interests were represented. Our story concerns one of the sons of Joan Amerike, who in 1606 had married Ellis Bradstock, grandson of Phineas Earl of Bradstock. The author would like to say that the newly-weds were a model family, but in truth they were the sort of adults who put the 'extremely' in front of 'embarrassing'.

Joan and Ellis – she had made him change his name to hers, because – had lived quietly enough in a small house in Hexham, but that had changed in 1613 when her only brother Baron Jeremy had died childless (if one did not count his at least six recognized bastards) just four months after inheriting the title from their father, upon which she had inherited the title and they had all moved into the family seat at Staward Hall, south of the town. This was good, as it gave her a much larger house in which to mortify her three children Aidan, Lord Haydonbridge (born 1607), Stephen (1608) and John (1610).

Stephen should by all the laws of probability have had a quiet life, assuming of course that his elder brother survived and he himself managed to avoid strangling his pestilential younger brother (that was a rather large assumption, it has to be said!). The Baroness's second son had several options in life. The Church of course, although that was still a bit of a mess what with the Reformation, Counter-Reformation and all. Being a soldier was a possibility although he was more interested in battle tactics than actual fighting; he had originally wanted to go to sea but despite his father buying him a sailor's cap and calling him 'Captain Amerike', his two sea-trips had both ended with him throwing up violently. Another possibility was to become a member of parliament when he was a bit older; his cousin Peter currently held the Hexhamshire seat in parliament and might decide to make way for him one day. While the job did not pay (except for the 'payment in kind' which came from his constituents provided he did what they wanted), it did open doors to the sort of society where he could make money.

Six months ago however Stephen's life had been shaken up very thoroughly by the arrival of a ward of his mother, one Master James Buchanan Barnes whose own parents had died and who was related in some way to his family. The newcomer was only a week older than him but much more adult in his nature, and despite his often careless appearance (which Stephen's mother, usually a stickler for such things, rather oddly never picked him up on), the younger boy had developed a serious crush. 

Possibly in an attempt to convince himself to 'do the right thing', Stephen had last Christmas yielded to the wiles of a valley prostitute and..... well, if that was sex, ugh! Double ugh! He had come home afterwards and had a thorough bath, grateful that the whole thing was over and now he knew.... well, he just _knew_. That had been during the last Christmas season, and so far this new year had been uneventful if one discounted King James's death a few days back. But that was faraway in London so could not possibly affect them.

As Stephen headed off to answer a summons from his father, he was about to discover that his year at least was no longer uneventful. And that when kings die, it can affect even distant areas like Hexhamshire.

MDCXXV

A manservant opened the study door to him and, Stephen noted, then left the room shutting the door very firmly behind him. Odd.

“Hullo, Stephen”, his father said gravely. “Please sit down.”

The boy took a chair and waited patiently. His father was a big man – it had always silently pleased Stephen that he and Aidan took after him while their brother John was the runt of the family - but character-wise he was decidedly withdrawn. He was, everyone said, very much ruled by his wife, not that his second son ever remarked on that; his mother Did Not Like such remarks being put around as John had found out the hard way one time!

His father took a deep breath.

“I have to talk about what you did in that barn last Christmas”, he said.

Stephen stared at him in horror. How on earth had he found out about _that?_

“Your mother suspected”, the baron told him, “especially when you came back and took a bath without being asked to. She got the truth out of Jamie; he did not want to betray you as I am sure you might have guessed, but you know your mother. I am disappointed, boy, in that you did it with the valley trollop.”

Stephen hung his head. He wondered what could have made his mother raise the matter now.... oh no! Three months on? Please God no!

The boy wondered just how one set about reaching Timbuctoo. His father nodded.

“Miss Morrells is pregnant”, he said heavily, “so we have arranged for her to move to an estate cottage where her needs will be attended to until... well, until. In the meantime we need to get you away from the area for a while; you know what people are like in these parts. Fortunately the late king's death means that King Charles has called a parliament, so you will be accompanying your mother's cousin Peter to London in order to see how politics works.”

“Thank you, sir”, the boy said weakly.

“I should tell you”, the baron said, “that my brother Edwin will also be there as his elder brother the new earl has decided that he should represent his local constituency.”

Stephen winced at that. His father was like him the middle of three sons, his half-brother Earl Edgar the eldest and Edwin the youngest. The former had recently come into the Bradstock title and was, Stephen considered, a tolerable idiot, while his wife Lady Naomi had a face that could curdle milk. From cows on the other side of her estate!

Uncle Edwin was a quiet, nondescript sort of fellow, but his wife Aunt Agnes was truly terrifying! She had precisely no filter, a passionate interest in the most gruesome aspects of history, and was wont to start discussing all sorts of things – usually involving sex – with no warning and even over the dinner-table! After her visit to Staward two years back the boy was still unable to look at a milking-stool without shuddering.

“She will be next door!” he realized. “I may even have to go round for meals! Can I not plead illness, Father? I would rather catch the plague than suffer that!”

“We all have to make sacrifices”, his father smiled dourly. “And perhaps it will make you think twice before you sow your seed so readily, son.”

Stephen groaned. Life was unfair!

MDCXXV

As he trudged back to his room the boy mused on how complicated his life had suddenly become. It probably served him right in wishing for a little excitement; he really should have been more specific. Thankfully no-one was around so he was able to be alone while he mused over the strange turn that his life had suddenly taken.

Assuming that Lucy Morrells's pregnancy worked out, Stephen knew that the baby – his son or daughter! – would be all right. He would not be allowed to marry the girl – he was a baron's son and this was the seventeenth century, after all – but for all their failings the nobility looked after their own, so like Jamie the boy would be taken care of and farmed out to some family who would be well-paid for their trouble. Perhaps some day when he had made his own way in the world, Stephen could present himself to him.

His thoughts were interrupted by his friend's entrance, as noisy as ever. Jamie was hale and glowing, their father having determined that the boy might as well make himself useful as free labour while he was here.

“I suppose that your father spoke to you”, Jamie said. “Adey said he was going to.”

Stephen sighed and nodded at his friend.

“My life”, he sighed. “How could things get any worse?”

“For poor Adey, they are about to”, Jamie said. “Father wishes him to marry Patty Glasson but only when she is sixteen, so four years from now.”

Stephen winced at that. The Glassons were from northern Lancashire but had some lands that bordered the Amerike estate down the valley, so his father would doubtless be looking for those as a dowry. He pitied his poor elder brother; he had suspected something of this when the Glassons had visited with Patricia last summer and Aidan had berated him for hiding away from them. As Stephen had pointed out, he valued his ear-drums!

“I suppose that Adey has to secure the family line and all that”, Jamie said, “which at least is one problem I will never have. Maybe you being in London.... it might be for the best.”

“Why do you say that?” Stephen asked, surprised.

His friend very clearly took his time in answering that one.

“I caught you looking at me when I went swimming that time”, he said. “You thought you were hidden behind that bush but I still saw you.”

Stephen was horrified!

“I think your mother suspects about us.... you know”, Jamie said carefully. “That is why you are being sent to London. Take care down there; there is only one of you and.... I am rather fond of that fellow.”

He kissed Stephen in a brotherly way then left rather quickly. The younger boy stared after him, wondering what other shocks today had in store. Please God he had surely had his fill by now!

MDCXXV

Fortunately there were no more life-changing events that day for Stephen Amerike. Which was good – as his next years would be turbulent enough.

MDCXXV

_Notes:_   
_1) An imaginary constituency. In reality Northumberland had a more than decent representation for such a rural area. Back then its 3,000 freemen voted for two county representatives, except in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (2,500), Berwick (1,000) and Morpeth (200) where the freemen each returned two members. The modern Hexham seat, created in 1885, covers the former Hexhamshire as well as much of south-west Northumberland and is as of 2021 the largest English constituency in area, although it is below average for the number of voters so faces even further enlargement at the boundary changes planned before the 2024 election._

MDCXXV


	3. Ups And Downs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For young Stephen Amerike, Anno Domini 1625 has developed in ways that he had not quite foreseen (see under 'magnitude, disasters of the first'). After another horrible sea-voyage – King Neptune still hates Captain Amerike, apparently – he sees London for the first time but the first parliament of the new reign starts off badly. And London stinks!

**April 1625**   
**Off Hornsea, East Riding of Yorkshire, ENGLAND**

Stephen stared blearily down the sides of the ship, grateful that he had heeded his cousin's advice and not had a large breakfast that morning. What little he had had was now down said sides of said ship, as the German Ocean heaved far too much for his liking. It seemed that the seas both remembered and still hated 'Captain Amerike'!

His parting from Jamie had been a painful one, and he gave credit to his parents for not making anything of the fact that he may or may not have been crying at the formal farewell. Now he was as promised heading to London with his mother's cousin Peter. Thirty-six years old and built on the same huge lines as his father Ellis but with more to him mentally, he had been elected unopposed to represent the good people of Hexhamshire in King Charles's first parliament. He helped the boy keep upright as he staggered back to their cabin and grinned shamelessly as he did so. Bastard!

Travel in England was difficult enough and only for those rich enough to afford the inconvenience as well as the dangers. Rather than brave the stagecoach which would have taken at least a week to get to the capital from Newcastle, the two had instead found a place on one of the many coal-ships which ploughed their way between Northumberland and London, keeping the capital's fires burning with good Northumbrian coal. 

“Is London as big as they say it is?” Stephen asked once he had sat down. He had hoped that the coastal waters would be relatively calm, but apparently not.

“Yes and no”, his cousin said. “It is all a bit of a mess, like London itself. You see, the city itself is what they call the Square Mile, the area within the great walls. It is joined to many nearby towns and villages, most of which count themselves as London as well.”

“Most?” Stephen asked.

“The big exception is Westminster, where the King has his great palace at Whitehall and where parliament sits”, Peter explained. “It is only a mile from the walls but it just _feels_ different; I worked the family's interests there before I came back to become a politician. You will see when we get there. You may even get to see around the palace if you are lucky?”

“How?” Stephen asked. “Surely they do not let just anyone in there?”

“Your mother's family's houses are on palace grounds”, his cousin said, “and as part of that they get free food brought round every day. I dare say we will be able to arrange for you to fetch or return the plates a few times.”

Stephen looked at him sharply.

“Aunt Agnes will be in one of the houses?” he pressed.

“Right next door”, his cousin said far too diffidently. “I can even invite her round to read you a bedtime story....”

Stephen gave him such a look. No matter how big he was (very), he was in severe danger of following the boy's breakfast over the side if he kept that up!

MDCXXV

**April 1625**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

Ye Gods, the _smell!_

The three houses owned by Stephen's family led along a road off the west side of Whitehall Place, which ran between Westminster Palace and the village of Charing (although just south of the turning into by the houses it narrowed into something colloquially referred to as 'The Street', over which footbridges ran connecting the two halves of the palace grounds). His aunt and uncle had not yet arrived when he and his cousin moved into the middle of the three, the third and furthest along the road being occupied by the rather oddly-named Amazon Bakery. More importantly, only the palace huge as it was separated the houses from the river into which all London's sewage spilled. Ugh!

The boy was rapidly gained a new appreciation for Northumberland!

The bakery was owned by a Miss Diana Prince, a muscular young woman of about twenty years of age who had looked appraisingly at Stephen when they had first met (he had shivered although to be fair it had been a particularly cold day), but had then seemed to accept him. The fact that the boy had visited the place just as his terrible aunt was arriving had been a coincidence and his cousin could stop with the smirking _right now!_

The bakery seemed quite full, and Stephen was surprised to find that lots of the men were members of parliament. He asked his cousin about it.

“It is one of the weird things about elections”, Peter said, “that they take place over a period of weeks and sometimes even a couple of months. It is partly because many members have to travel from far away and you know how difficult that is; a lot set out early because of the dreadful roads.”

Stephen thought of that heaving boat and nodded fervently.

“Also your aunt has invited us round for dinner tomorrow evening.”

“I was thinking about a career in the Church”, Stephen countered. “Starting tomorrow afternoon!”

His cousin just shook his head at him. Damnation!

MDCXXV

**May 1625**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

May Day. Stephen's birthday. He had just about stopped shaking after supper the night before had been followed by another of his terrible aunt's terrible stories. An insane wood-carver who whittled chair legs to make.... ugh! 

“The king has appointed Heneage Finch¹ as Speaker of the House”, Peter told him, thankfully taking his mind off the horrors of the previous day. “It was hardly a conciliatory gesture, especially as he is suspected of being a 'paper Protestant'.”

“What is one of those?” Stephen asked.

“A Catholic who plays along with the laws as far as they have to, but who everyone knows is of the Old Faith”, his cousin said. “It will be interesting to see how heavily the new king continues to fine Catholics who are openly defiant; any slackening off will make matters even worse with parliament.”

“You think that this parliament will not work with the king?” Stephen asked. 

“I am very much afraid that they will not”, Peter sighed. “King James had only one parliament for just three months in his last few years then kept proroguing it; he died while it was still suspended. They called it the Happy Parliament because unlike others it ended peacefully, but that was only because he went and died before it could go wrong! His son is convinced that everyone should just give him whatever he wants and be grateful for their having been blessed with such a brilliant ruler. The technical phrase for such a belief is 'sorely mistaken'.”

“That is what they call his Divine Right, is it not?” Stephen asked.

“Yes and no”, Peter said. “Many people think that the king simply believes that as he is God's man on Earth, he is beyond question and must always have his way.”

The boy spotted the unspoken words there.

"That is what most kings and queens believe, though", he said. "Did not Great Elizabeth believe in it as well?"

"Even more so", his cousin said, "but being her she managed to square the circle. You see, on one level the monarch is God's representative on Earth so should be beyond question, but on another they have to make deals with people to get money. She made it clear that in religious matters her word had better not be questioned or else, but on secular matters she was prepared to compromise. That suited her barons just fine. This king on the other hand thinks that he should be beyond question on all matters. Worse still, anyone who questions him is going against God's will and is evil. It is like one of those religious extremists who pick out the extreme bits of the Good Book that allow them to do whatever they want, and I am afraid that it will not end well.”

MDCXXV

His words were to prove all too accurate. Horribly accurate.

MDCXXV

_Notes:_   
_1) Sir Heneage Finch (b. 1580). No relation to his successor, the unpopular John Finch. Heneage like many around this time took his unusual Christian name from his mother's maiden name. He was something of a nonentity ._

MDCXXV


	4. Useless And Embarrassing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles Stuart's first parliament crashes and burns to the surprise of absolutely no-one except Charles Stuart, who cannot understand why men will not give him all the money he wants because he demands it as his right. How bizarre! Stephen's return to Northumberland is marked by both a death and a birth, and also a moment of supreme embarrassment courtesy of a distant soldier.

**June 1625**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

Stephen soon found his way around the city, although his cousin insisted that he always take his dagger with him 'just in case'. The king's palace stretched for much of the length of the road but the recently-built Banqueting House apart it was not really that impressive, despite supposedly being the biggest royal palace in all Europe. The boy went down to the quay one day and looked up towards London's sole bridge in the distance; he wondered if it was used much¹ as the dirty river seemed full of craft plying people across from one side to the other.

The palace’s landing-area lay just beyond the quay for Westminster and the old royal palace, the latter now home to the obstreperous parliament. Stephen frankly did not see how its members could do much as they only sat when the king called them, so asked his cousin about it.

“Money”, Peter said simply. “When King Henry the Eighth moved across from the old palace to take poor Wolsey's magnificent York Place which he renamed Whitehall Palace, he eventually let Westminster Palace to parliament. That was a mistake; before that they had only met wherever the king was, although that was usually in London. Also that much-married monarch closed down all the monasteries and took their money, only to spend it all.”

“Mr. Willingham told me that he spent more money that every king or queen before him”, Stephen said. “That is over a thousand years! Yet he still ended his reign deep in debt!”

“It did not help that even Great Elizabeth had to sell lands to make ends meet”, Peter said, “although she did have the odd Spanish Armada or four to deal with as well as assisting the Dutch in their interminable rebellion. Things were then made worse because the late King James was bad with money, and worse, he looked bad.”

Stephen was confused. What did the late king's appearance have to do with anything? His cousin smiled at his befuddlement.

“I mean that parliament was more inclined to vote Elizabeth money because they knew how tight-fisted she was”, he explained. “They knew that she only ever asked for money if she _really_ needed it. King James spent a lot more on his court, and worse, on favourites like the ghastly Buckingham². That he is still hanging around like a bad smell is not helping matters.”

“You said that you were discussing tonnage today”, Stephen said. “What is that, sir?”

“Every monarch gets tonnage and poundage voted to them for life at the start of their reign”, Peter explained. “They are excise duties on products, and are used to fund the royal household. However this king has so offended parliament by his actions that they have said he can only have a year's duties.”

The boy was surprised at that.

“Surely that is a terrible insult?” he asked. 

“Every king we have had before has not come to parliament telling us to just shut up and give him their money”, his cousin sighed. “There are funds for a raid on Spain although the haul from their once-great treasure-ships seems to be on the wane. I do not think the loss of a few merchant ships is going to persuade King Philip to pressure his Hapsburg cousins into giving back one acre of the poor Elector's lands.”

Stephen did know about that at least, as his father had insisted that he and Aidan keep abreast of foreign politics as part of their studies. Frederick the Fifth was (or rather had been) the ruler of the Rhine Palatinate, one of those numerous mid-European German states that made up the quarrelsome Holy Roman Empire. He had married the late King James's daughter Elizabeth and some years back had foolishly had pressed his claim to the vacant throne of Bohemia, which if he had been successful might have put the Protestants into a position of power within the Empire. The Catholic Emperor had driven him out not only of his new but also his native lands, and many people had criticized the late King James for his failure to do anything to support his own daughter. Especially as she was now the heir presumptive to the throne.

“The most worrisome thing”, the nobleman said, “is that I very much fear this king is dishonest. As I said, he is prepared to do anything to overcome opponents who, he believes, are evil because they are acting against God's – and his – will. Equally there are some in parliament who are equally determined to rein him in. It will all end very badly, mark my words.”

MDCXXV

**August 1625**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

Incredibly, the Thames in high summer stank even more, but for Stephen that would not be a problem for much longer. The king had apparently tired of this Useless Parliament which would not do what he commanded because he commanded it, and had sent them back to their respective homes. 

The boy had slipped down to Westminster Abbey while his cousin arranged a passage back to Northumberland for them. The great church was mightily impressive, and the boy was drawn to one particular tomb which seemed to be getting very little attention. He wondered why and went over to examine it more closely.

Ah. The tomb of the late Prince Henry Frederick, England's (and Scotland's) great hope, the late King James's eldest son who had died back in 1612 leaving his idiot brother in line to the throne. Stephen looked up to the slender figure resting on the tomb – the fellow had he knew been only eighteen when he had died – and wondered; what might have become of England under him? And what would become of it under his brother who, apparently, did not understand how anyone could possibly say no to him and considered all his opponents evil? The boy had an uneasy feeling that the answer to that would not be a pleasant one. 

He could not know however that the dead prince still had business with his country – business that would only day pull in one Stephen Roger Amerike.

MDCXXV

**September 1625**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

Stephen was not totally surprised to return to Staward and find it minus a familiar character. Bitterly unhappy, but not surprised.

“Jamie wanted to be a soldier”, his father said, eyeing the boy far too knowingly, “and you can imagine how your mother reacted to that! Fortunately Peter's brother Paul is going over with the troops to help King Christian³ and his Danes against the Holy Roman Emperor, and he has taken Jamie to see what it is like. If the boy has it in him to be a soldier then we have promised to buy him a commission when he reaches eighteen.”

 _And in the meantime, keep him away from me_ , Stephen thought bitterly. He would spend all winter worrying now; he was sure that a few thousand English troops would not be enough for the Danish king (who he knew was King Charles's uncle through marriage) to restore the position of the battered Protestants in the Empire, and only hoped that his friend would not be stupid enough to put himself in danger.

“Paul will look after him”, his father said confidently, “if only because he would not dare return otherwise. Your mother made that quite clear!”

Stephen nodded and excused himself to his room. He could not help but feel that his friend's absence was his fault, and it was not a nice feeling at all.

MDCXXV

**September 1625**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

Just two days after his return, Stephen became a father. Of course there was a 'but'.

“I am afraid that Miss Morrells did not make it”, his father said heavily. “The boy was nearly a week late and it proved too much for her. Naturally we will take care of her family.”

Stephen nodded.

“What is the boy to be called?” he asked carefully.

“Lucius, after his mother”, his father said. “He is to be raised by a family on our Fifeshire estate, up in Scotland, and will be taken there once he is healthy enough. It is for the best.”

Stephen nodded, though he wished that he could have seen his son before he was removed from his life. But then the way country areas worked, that might only start speculation.

Ye Gods, he was a father!

MDCXXV

**December 1625**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

The downside of being home, Stephen had quickly decided, was having to put up with his obnoxious younger brother for whom absence had not made the heart grow the least bit fonder. Two years his junior (and many more than his inferior), he had an unprepossessing personality that endeared him to no-one, not even his parents. The only upside of that was he had not heard of Stephen's crush on his friend otherwise he would have had to drown the pest in the Allen, which would have been terrible. 

For the fish therein, at least.

Aidan knew of course, because the nosy bastard knew everything, but he was busy most of the time studying the estate accounts with their father. They did however talk briefly on Christmas Day, when the young man had a surprise for him. 

Stephen looked at the leather bracelet in surprise.

“You got me this?” he asked, confused.

Aidan blushed.

“Jamie asked me to give it to you for Christmas”., he explained. “He had two identical ones made; he is wearing one while he is in Germany and he wanted you to have the other.”

Stephen turned bright red. 

“Go down for breakfast like now?” Aidan suggested.

“Oh Lord yes!”

MDCXXV

**December 1625**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

The family's Yuletide celebrations were interrupted by the news that the King had yielded to the inevitable and called a second parliament. Stephen would therefore be headed back to London that winter. He thought of that turbulent German Ocean, and shuddered.

MDCXXV

_Notes:_   
_1) It was not, as the decision to build houses along its length, some of which were seven storeys high and overhung the river by as much as 70 feet (21 metres) made it too narrow, as well as the drawbridge in its centre frequently being raised to allow ships through. It was further damaged by a fire in 1633, although weirdly that likely prolonged its life as the ruined houses at its northern end acted as firebreak during the Great Fire of 1666. It was finally closed in 1831, its replacement lasting only 140 years before it was sold to Lake Havasu City in Arizona._   
_2) George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (b. 1592). A decent organizer but far too skilled at making enemies – eventually at the cost of his life! His lineage died out with his son; the title was subsequently recreated twice but on both occasions it died out again._   
_3) King Christian The Fourth, ruled 1588-1648. Neither Denmark nor Norway (which lather he ruled in Personal Union with his own country) were part of the Holy Roman Empire, but he was also Duke of Schleswig and Holstein which were in it._

MDCXXV


	5. Plus Ça Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a spotty start to the year which will have important consequences much later in his life, Stephen is off down to London to see if King Charles's second parliament will be more successful than his first (spoiler alert: it won't). There are questions about the queen, doubts about a duke, and Stephen has a discussion of Continental matters with his Norse god of a cousin. As one does.

**January 1626**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

A happy Yuletide had given way to a miserable New Year when Stephen had contracted chickenpox. Even worse, his tutor had already had it so he did not even get out of lessons. Life was unfair!

To cap it all Aunt Agnes had sent her sister-in-law a story – for all her learning, his mother did not seem to get how truly terrible these tales were – so Stephen alone had got to hear the story of the Ancient Egyptians created a machine somehow run by the power of steam, then used it to sexually torture their prisoners until they confessed. How did his relative come up with such dreadful ideas?

_(Unfortunately and thanks to his irritating younger brother John, Stephen already knew the answer to that. The massively inferior Amerike had asked their aunt that very question during her visit and, incredible as it seemed, their quiet Uncle Edwin was the 'inspiration' for at least some of her criminal writings! Bad mental image, really bad mental image!)_

Thankfully Stephen's cousin Peter had again been elected unopposed by the good people of Hexhamshire, and this time the two of them would be travelling to London in the family’s coach. Several days of very uncomfortable being bounced around loomed ahead for the boy, but at least he would not be throwing up over the sides of a ship this time. And the first month of the year had ended on a high note; the irritating John insisted on lecturing his elder brother about something or other only to catch the disease himself, and the pest was still scratching when Stephen left for the capital. Hah!

MDCXXVI

**February 1626**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

Stephen's year continued to improve when he finally reached London, even if he was unable to sit down for the rest of the day of his arrival after the nightmarish ordeal that his backside had been through in their week-long coach journey to London. His Uncle Edwin was there but Aunt Agnes had decided to stay in Oxfordshire this time 'as she was working on a brilliant story involving olive oil'. Stephen shuddered at that but was glad for her absence, hoping fervently that this latest horror would be finished and inflicted on some other suck..... listener. Although he got on with all her sons, so not them.

He was however not to be deprived of female company for this trip, as his uncle's wife was waiting for them in the capital. Penelope Amerike was distantly related to someone in the new king's circle so naturally she knew everything there was to know, although she herself _never_ spread gossip; the boy was frankly impressed that she could keep a straight face when saying that. And unlike Aunt Agnes, the worst failing of Aunt Penny (she preferred that title) was to keep giving her husband gooey-eyed looks after which they would adjourn to their room and Stephen would find an urgent need to go out. Quickly. Or at least find some good ear-plugs; seriously, he had thought to have left that sort of thing safely behind him in Northumberland!

“The Duke of Buckingham is quite the looker”, Aunt Penny said as she and her husband came into the room, the latter looking thoroughly debauched again. “Do you think he and the king really are together together?”

“You saw the coronation banquet”, Peter said, sitting down very carefully for reasons that Stephen so did not want to think about. “He outshone the new queen, although she hardly helped matters.”

That was true, Stephen had to concede. Henrietta Maria was the sister of King Louis the Thirteenth and some nine years younger than the king, fifteen to his twenty-four. He might have felt more sorry for her had she not flatly refused to take part in the coronation because it was a Protestant service ('though she turned up for all the free food', Aunt Penny had snarked).

“The king wants to make use of the French marriage to win support for their help against the Spanish” Peter went on, “which he will not get. Besides, English Protestants are hardly going to be overjoyed at their taxes used in a war against the Huguenots¹.”

The new king had not impressed Stephen much, either. He had seemed uncommonly short as well as far too full of himself. He had also done nothing to stop his favourite upstaging his new wife, which she must have resented and which resentment would surely be being reported in Paris very soon. So much for better Anglo-French relations.

“The duke does have two children by his wife”, his wife observed.

“Politics is as much about perception as it is reality”, Peter countered. “If the King rubs people up the wrong way then they will wish to think the worst of him whether it is true or not. He only has himself to blame for that.”

“I suppose”, she said. “But I would wager that he cannot see that.”

“Probably”, Peter said. “I must be off to meet with some of my fellow members for dinner, dear.”

He kissed his wife, nodded at Stephen and left. The boy thought to himself that at least there would be no noises this evening necessitating his rapid removal from the house. Phew!

MDCXXVI

Unfortunately for Stephen his cousin returned while he was still awake, and he had to rush downstairs to fetch his ear-plugs! Adults!

MDCXXVI

**April 1626**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

The plague had been reported in the docks for two days running, and when it reached the city itself Peter insisted that his wife take the boy to a house of a friend of his in Kensington, a village a couple of miles west of Westminster. The boy noted that there were signs of the nearness of the great metropolis in the unusually large houses and the busier roads, but otherwise it might well have been a typical English village.

Fortunately the second week of April brought the all-clear and they were able to return to Whitehall. Even better Lord Edwin's and Aunt Agnes’s eldest son Thor came down to join them. Stephen's first cousin was barely a year his senior but much more outgoing in nature, and to his parents' displeasure had already made it clear that he intended to pursue a career as a soldier. Like Peter he was a big blond fellow but friendly enough, and Stephen was surprised when not long after arriving he drew him aside.

“I have some news for your cousin”, he said, “but I thought it better that I tell you first.”

“What is it?” Stephen asked. “To tell me you only came down to avoid your mother’s dreadful writings? That would hardly be news!”

Thor paled.

“Vithar and Vale are too young”, he said, wincing, “and Baldur is always so dopey that, she says, he does not appreciate her brilliance. I rather think the bastard appreciates it well enough to pull a fast one, which leaves only yours truly. Hence I jumped at the chance to come down here. No, I wanted to talk to you about Continental matters. I suppose you heard that the king's Danish uncle rode in to try to save the Protestants in the Empire?” 

“Of course”, Stephen said. “A hopeless task everyone said, but I suppose on must give him credit for trying....”

His voice trailed off as he realized what his cousin was getting at. Thor nodded.

“A friend of mine is serving over there”, he said. “Dickon; he works in logistics rather than the front line and he mentioned to me the arrival of your mother's ward Lieutenant Buchanan. I wrote to Aidan and he contacted your mother so she could use him to keep an eye on her ward. Aidan also wrote to me and he.... he explained things.”

Passing aliens could have seen Stephen's blush. From the next galaxy.

“Yes?” he said in what was arguably a high-pitched voice.

“King Christian has been defeated at a place called Dessau Bridge”, Thor said, “and is retreating back to Holstein, his Germanic lands. Your friend was injured but only lightly; you know how many soldiers die from their wounds rather than directly in battle.”

Stephen did, which was yet another reason he had feared for his friend.

“He also told me that your friend distinguished himself in combat”, Thor said, “preventing a complete rout by holding his position for far longer than anyone could have expected. We can only hope that he and his king get back to Denmark safely.”

“Very true!” Stephen agreed fervently.

MDCXXVI

_Notes:_   
_1) French Protestants; the derivation of the word is uncertain. The movement had never really recovered after the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of all its leaders back in 1572 in which thousands of Protestants had been massacred. For some strange reason this had gone down badly in England._

MDCXXVI


	6. Cleaning Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aunt Penny makes an unusual and rather large purchase in the London docks, even by her 'standards'. Stephen and Thor learn the importance of both ear-plugs and fast running, the king becomes slightly richer, and Stephen formally meets a woman who can work wonders and knows rather a lot about him.

**April 1626**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

It was about a week after Thor's arrival that it happened. Aunt Penny had gone out for some reason and had been very late back, which was unlike her. Even more unusually she was waiting for her husband to come in from parliament; usually she allowed him to go to his study and get a stiff drink, which he often needed for... reasons. Stephen did offer to go to his room when he heard his cousin returning but she just shook her head.

Peter Amerike entered the room looking as tired and careworn as per usual. Stephen was impressed; it took him only seconds to realize that something was wrong.

“What has happened?” he asked anxiously.

“Nothing”, his wife said far too innocently.

His cousin was not assured by this. Probably with good cause, Stephen suspected.

“All right, what is about to happen then?” Peter asked.

“I took your note round to that merchant you were going to buy a ship from”, his wife said. “Mr. Lane.”

“And?” he asked.

“I found him abusing a young fellow of his who worked for him”, she said crossly, “just because he did not fetch something that he wanted quickly enough. I made my own feelings quite clear and he was not best pleased. Honestly, to think that that villain aspires to the rank of _gentleman!”_

“I am sure that you helped put him right, dear”, her husband smiled.

“I knew that you would understand, Petie.”

Stephen was immediately alarmed. She only used that name to her husband at certain times, and it could not be for That this time of day even for her. Well, probably not. Please God not; it was raining outside and he really did not want to flee the house while they….. well, he just did not.

Peter Amerike sighed heavily.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“I bought his apprenticeship out”, she beamed. “He is downstairs, waiting for you to see him.

MDCXXVI

Stephen had never drunk alcohol in his life except possibly for that one time as a dare which had made him throw up afterwards, but as he had not kept it down that did not count. However, when he returned upstairs with his cousin after looking at their new 'acquisition', he did not hesitate before downing the small glass of whisky that Jameson, their ever-efficient butler, had ready. His cousin similarly finished a much larger one; both men clearly needed it.

Aunt Penny’s ‘purchase’ had been about fourteen years of age – possibly more; it was hard to tell with his terrible condition. Stephen had been reminded of an old woodcut he had once seen of a grinning skeletal Death; this fellow had looked like a strong wind would knock him clean over. The fellow's name was Brennus; he seemed unsure of his surname and neither man had felt inclined to press him on it.

Peter took a deep breath before speaking.

“We must get a doctor to look over him”, he said. 

He hesitated and seemed to be thinking about something. He must have reached a conclusion quickly because he turned to Stephen.

“Come with me, boy”, he said. “If you are going into politics, it is time to introduce you to one of the most powerful people in London Town.”

Stephen looked at him in confusion.

MDCXXVI

He was even more confused when their journey took them only as far as the bakery next door. His cousin spoke to Miss Prince who was behind the counter, she nodded and then led the way out the back. The boy followed them both.

“I am hoping that someone as young as you can keep your mouth shut over this”, Peter said as they all sat down. “As well as owning this bakery, Miss Prince runs the Wonder Woman Cleaning Corporation.”

That did not seem particularly remarkable, but Stephen guessed that there had to be more. He waited patiently.

“She also runs the most efficient information agency in the capital”, his cousin went on. “She knows almost everything about almost everybody.”

“Really?” Stephen said dubiously.

“Luke”, the lady said quietly.

Stephen blushed fiercely.

“I could really embarrass the boy by asking what else you know of him”, said a cousin that Stephen no longer liked one little bit, “but I am more concerned over a recent purchase that my wife made.”

“Rather more urgent that this stripling's brief alcoholic past”, Miss Prince said (Stephen may or may not have gone slightly red at those words). “A large and painfully thin purchase. Yes, I have had my eye on Mr. Lane for some time. Like many merchants he operates a smuggling business on the side, and I have been thinking that it is high time that someone alerted the authorities. This very afternoon might be a good time. In the next ten minutes, even.”

“Thank you”, Peter smiled. “So Stevie, just how drunk were you?”

The boy glared at him.

MDCXXVI

**April 1626**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

“I hear that that dreadful Mr. Lane has been thrown into the Tower”, Aunt Penny said casually a few days later. “He was apparently running a smuggling business alongside his regular one, and the authorities found out.”

She looked pointedly at her husband, who shrugged.

“Wrongdoing always catches up with you in the end”, he said dismissively. “At least the king will be pleased.”

“Why is that?” Stephen asked.

“Because he will levy a heavy fine before he is let out”, Peter said, “and the way he is always upsetting parliament, he needs all the money that he can get!”

Stephen could not but agree. His cousin had shown him the file that Miss Prince had gathered on their new house member and it had been mostly bad news; Brennus's family were all gone and the nearest relative was a drunken second cousin living in Germany who had a weird fetish involving eggs (the boy was getting even more afraid as to just what else the bakery owner might have on him!). However Aunt Penny had decided that the family was going to see her new acquisition right, which was all to the good.

MDCXXVI

**April 1626**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

Stephen stared in astonishment at Thor.

“You are trying to gull me!” the boy said accusingly. “No-one would believe such a thing!”

Thor shook his head.

“You can ask Peter if you do not believe me”, he said, “but it is true. One of the greatest scientists of our age brought down by a daft invention of his own.”

Stephen's cousin had informed him that the great Francis Bacon¹, who must have been in his sixties by now, had on a whim decided to test a theory that snow could be used to preserve food by taking advantage of the unseasonal spring and stuffing a chicken to see if the cold preserved it. Unfortunately he had contracted a chill and had died soon after.

“The perils of modern technology”, Thor said wisely. “It is sad, though. Peter said that he did a lot for Buckingham when he was Lord Chancellor, but when parliament pushed for his removal neither duke nor king had returned the favour. I wonder what inventors like him will try to come up with next?”

There was a loud groan from upstairs, followed by a female voice shouting 'Lord yes!' rather too loudly.

“An advanced warning system for relatives who traumatize you on a regular basis might be a good idea!” Stephen quipped as they both raced for the door!

MDCXXVI

_Notes:_   
_1) Francis Bacon (b. 1561), rightly famed for being the father of the empirical method, i.e. proceeding from logical observations of facts to a conclusion. His methods were not take up until many years after his death which, as the story showed, was what happened when he took his inquiries a bit too far. He had been forced to resign as Lord Chancellor in 1621 after getting into debt; he was heavily fined but the king cancelled that and let him keep his title of Baron St. Albans. However the charge then kept him out of any future public office._

MDCXXVI


	7. Winning The Lottery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A young nobleman gets both a hug and a new cuddle-bunn…. I meant, a new manservant. Stephen turns eighteen and faces the horrors of another long trip back to Northumberland when King Charles's second parliament unsurprisingly crashes and burns. There is a new royal appointment which, to the shock of everyone, works very well (sic), a lot of people are made redundant, and Stephen worries about his friend in an increasingly dangerous Germany.

**May 1626**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

April turned into May and Stephen marked his eighteenth birthday. He had noted that his cousin was contriving to look even more careworn when he came back from the House of Commons.

“It is not going well”, he told his wife one evening. “The king is still demanding money before he will even consider looking at the many grievances we have, and the members have shunted the subsidies they were thinking of handing over into a committee where they will stay until he obliges us. Or dismisses us, which is looking ever more likely given this latest spat.”

“Throwing members in the Tower did not for some reason make him more popular?” Aunt Penny asked in mock surprise. “Colour me astonished! Who could have thought it?”

Stephen smiled at her tone.

“The King has said that he will release Eliot¹ and Digges²”, Peter said, “but we all know that that was only because we refused to do anything otherwise. Fool man! He engendered a totally unnecessary trial of strength and has come out the loser, all to protect the feelings of his Gorgeous George!”

The boy sniggered at the name, but blushed as Aunt Penny gave him a sharp look. She was keeping an eye on him after he and Thor had tried to smuggle some extra food down to Brennus; she had told them afterwards that the doctor that they had had look at them had said that while he would recover, he must only be fed a little at first as his body might not be able to cope with the sudden glut of food. Stephen had thought that a little odd but then he supposed that doctors knew best.

“There is also news from Scotland”, Peter said. “It concerns you, Thor. I am afraid that your grandfather the earl has passed.”

Thor's fearsome mother had been an illegitimate daughter of John Earl of Montrose, one of that country's leading landowners; her sister had been a friend of Stephen's own mother hence the link between the two families. The earl had, he knew, married late in life and from his cousin's anxious look he had quickly done some rather unpleasant mathematics.

“And his son³ not yet fourteen summers”, Aunt Penny said, clearly having also worked it out. “The King will be seizing the estate into his dratted Court of Wards⁴.”

“Not to worry”, her husband said. “I pulled a few strings and got them to accept young James as an adult. I pointed out that the last thing the king needs just now is trouble from Scotland, and I slipped Cottington the usual bribe.”

Stephen did not think it right that one had to bribe officials to do their jobs and follow the law, although he had long understood that many of said jobs were so poorly paid that it was accepted the holder would enrich himself at every opportunity. It was the downside of paying people in government so little, or in the case of members of parliament not paying them at all.

“The king also seems to have done something right over Scotland”, Peter said.

“For a change!” Thor muttered. 

Peter shook his head at him but did not reprove the young man.

“He has appointed William Earl of Menteith⁵ as his chief minister up there”, he said. “He heard how good he was at sorting things out and asked him to take the post. He is a most unusual fellow, one of the few not out for every penny he can squeeze out of the peasants.”

“An honest man in politics”, his wife smiled. “He will not last long, then.”

Her husband shook his head at her. She looked back at him and....

MDCXXVI

Stephen and Thor were barely out of the house in time!

MDCXXVI

**May 1626**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

It was the very next day, and Peter Amerike’s face had somehow grown even longer. Parliament’s negotiations with the king were not going well.

“It does not help that some of his courtiers have been putting it about that he will not honour any concessions he is forced to make”, Stephen told Thor when they met that day. “Peter tells me that his friends will hardly give money to a king who boasts about his plans to rat on the deal once he has their cash.”

“Hmm.”

Stephen belatedly noted his cousin's abstraction. Thor often gave the impression of not quite being all there (although as he was rather bigger than his cousin despite being less than a year older, the Amerike had for some reason never quite got round to mentioning this), but today he looked even dozier than usual.

“Has something else happened?” Stephen asked.

“Aunt Penny asked me to start taking all Bren's meals down to him”, Thor said. “The doctor said that the fewer people he is subjected to while he recovers the better; having different servants coming in was upsetting him. He looks a lot less of a skeleton now, which is good.”

Stephen stared at his cousin.

“But?” he pressed.

Thor blushed fiercely.

“I went to collect his things after dinner”, he said, “and he suddenly went and hugged me!”

Stephen continued to stare at his friend who was now even redder. Belatedly he got it.

“Oh Lord!” he exclaimed. “You liked it!”

“Who could not like Bren?” Thor asked. “He is like a big, overgrown puppy, looking up at you out of those soulful blue eyes of his. Besides, you have Jamie.”

“Who is several hundred miles away and in danger of his life”, Stephen pointed out. “Not down in the basement looking up at you through those 'soulful blue eyes'.”

“I hate you!” Thor grumbled.

“I know!”

That got him an arguably merited punch. It was still worth it though.

MDCXXVI

**June 1626**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

Peter Amerike had summonsed the boys to his study, and they went pretty much guessing what it was about having heard rumours all day. They both bowed and stood before him.

“I am sure that you have heard the news”, the man said grimly. “The king has tired of this parliament as he tired of the last one, and has dismissed it. We shall be heading back to our homes again, at least until he realizes that he needs money to run the country and calls another one.”

Stephen could feel his cousin tense beside him.

“Please sir”, Thor asked carefully. “What about Bren – Brennus?”

Stephen definitely detected a slight pause before Peter answered that question. And the look he was giving Thor was rather too knowing.

“I did think of asking your father, Stephen, if there was a place for him on your estate”, he said.

Stephen could feel his friend's horror at that. The gentle giant over two hundred miles away from 'his cuddle-bunny'. The young man was clearly struggling for words but Peter spoke first.

“Fortunately Thor, I had made your father aware of.... developments”, he said. “He agreed that as you are his heir and a man now, it would be fitting for you to have your own manservant. I know that... Brennus is young but I am sure that you can train him up, given time.”

Stephen bit back a smile. His cousin looked like he had won the lottery!

“Thank you, sir!” Thor said fervently.

“I am trusting you with another human being, remember”, Peter said. “As is my wife so Lord help you if you upset her; you will discover that two hundred miles is nowhere near enough! But I am sure you will treat Brennus well.”

“I will, sir!” Thor said firmly.

Stephen was too much of a friend to tease his cousin over his reaction. Apart possibly from some fake kissing noises once they were safely outside, which Thor ‘did not hear’ as he had gone (sprinted) down to the basement to tell his cuddle-bunny the good news.

MDCXXVI

**August 1626**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

One of the things that amazed Stephen about life in general was just how quick news reached them. It had taken a week to get back from London to Hexhamshire (and a further day for his poor backside to stop aching!), yet news of happenings in the capital somehow always contrived to reach them quickly.

“The news from London is interesting”, Stephen told Aidan one day. The boys had been excused from their lessons as both were progressing well, and had gone down to laze by the river in the summer sun. Even better, the pestilential John was having to do extra work to catch up!

“What news?” Aidan asked, yawning.

“The King has dismissed nearly all his wife's French servants”, Stephen said. “Presumably he thinks that that will make us Protestants like him more.”

“The king considers himself the best of Protestants”, Aidan said knowingly, “whatever many people think of him. It is good that his Catholic wife has little influence on him, even if the alternative in Gorgeous George is almost as bad.”

They both watched as a cart trundled along the track on the other side of the river. Aidan sighed.

“There is more news from the Continent”, he said at last. “Germany, to be exact.”

Stephen tensed.

“What news?” he asked quickly. “Jamie?”

He had spoken rather too eagerly, and blushed. Now he knew why Aidan had wanted them to be well away from the house for this conversation.

“Yes”, his brother said. “There has been another battle; it seems that King Christian did not retreat fast enough. He has been defeated at a place called Lutter. Any hopes the Protestants in the Empire had of Copenhagen seem to have failed.”

“And Jamie?” Stephen fretted.

“Safe and well”, Aidan said. “Not a scratch on him; fortunately he was in a party sent ahead that was not caught in the defeat. Meanwhile the war goes merrily on towards the end of its first decade; one wonders who will get involved next? Or where it will all end for that matter?”

MDCXXVI

_Notes:_   
_1) Sir John Eliot (b. 1592), member for the tiny Cornish seat of Newport near Launceston. Initially a friend of Buckingham, the disastrous Cadiz expedition of 1623 had turned him to an enemy – and fatally for just about everyone, an enemy of the King._   
_2) Dudley Digges (b. 1583), member for Tewkesbury. Unlike Eliot he was prepared to apologize to the king._   
_3) James Earl of Montrose (b. 1612), Jamie's half-uncle despite being four years his junior. We shall be seeing a lot of him later; the current Duke of Montrose, another James (b. 1935) is a direct descendant of his._   
_4) A particularly unpleasant money-making scheme for the Crown. If the owner of an estate which had originally been a grant from the Crown died with an underage heir as in this case, the monarch took over the lands then sold the administration rights, usually to a near relative and always for a fat fee. The barons saw it, correctly, as yet another barely legal stealth tax. Francis Cottington (b. 1579) was master of the Court at this time and yet another of the 'paper Protestants' at court._   
_5) William Graham (b. 1591), a distant cousin of Jamie's. He too had acceded to his title under-age, at seven in his case. His titles died out with his son of the same name._

MDCXXVI


	8. Your True And Loving Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Holy Roman Empire will not, apparently, be dancing to the Transylvanian Twist. The political situation back in London continues to be a complete dog's breakfast such that England could soon find itself in two Continental wars rather than just the one. And it is a good thing that the modern man, which Stephen Amerike most definitely is, does not get emotional.   
> Shut up!

**September 1626**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

Stephen stared out of the window, feeling perhaps a shade too much pleasure at the sight of his obnoxious younger brother running away from the house. The pest had caught him just after his father had given him this letter to read and had naturally made fun of him, forgetting (as so many children are wont to do) that they were cursed with that most terrifying of things, the Magically Appearing Mother. Which explained why even at this distance, he could clearly make out his brother's still-glowing ear.

He sighed and made himself comfortable in the large window before re-reading his letter. It was just a few lines, nothing much, except that it came from the MacDonalds, the family who were raising his son up in Fifeshire. His father had arranged for Stephen to get annual reports of how he was doing, and had said that one day he might even be allowed to go there to see him. 

His son! Stephen sniffed and blinked several times, wondering why the room had been left so dusty. The maids really needed to do better!

MDCXXVI

**October 1626**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

Stephen had little time for the supernatural, but he was for once grateful that the wise-woman of Catton, Mistress Quickly, had warned the locals that despite the seemingly endless blue skies of summer there were heavy rains coming, so they should get the harvest in ahead of time. His father had been dubious but his mother had accepted it so that was that, and the wise-woman had been proven right. Two days after the granary doors had been locked the heavens had duly opened, and it had not stopped raining since.

His and Aidan's tutor had been called away to the bedside of a sick relative in Newcastle but, annoyingly, their mother had arranged for him to leave them plenty of work to be getting on with. Which was why Stephen was not sat on the window-bench, listening to the rain pelting down as he struggled with a mathematics problem.

“There is more news from London.”

Stephen looked across at his brother.

“The king?” he asked. “I know that he has decided to give himself tonnage and poundage 'as he sees fit', parliament or nor parliament.”

“Sort of”, Aidan said. “After helping King Louis deal with the Huguenots in La Rochelle, the mighty Buckingham has seemingly decided he did not get the credit that his great and glorious assistance merited, so has been making overtures to the very people he has been attacking!”

Stephen sighed.

“The man is a moron”, he said. “But I would wager a shilling that the king cannot see it.”

“Or more likely does not wish to see it”, Aidan agreed. “He once said that he does not wish to have any 'melancholy men' at his court. In other words, no-one who will tell him that he is wrong.”

“He is God's man on earth”, Stephen smiled. “He cannot be wrong!”

MDCXXVI

**December 1626**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

“I hear that that idiot down in London has said he is not keen on allowing his people to leave for the New World.”

Stephen winced at his mother's volume. He might also have fretted that what she said might reach the king, but even Charles Stuart would not be so stupid to take action against her. Otherwise, as Aidan had so rightly said, Aunt Agnes might decide to visit the royal court and start talking about.... things!

“The king fears that allowing these Puritans to sail off and found a new country or two will one day lead to their descendants sailing back with their unwelcome beliefs”, the baron said. “Given the latest news from the New World, the policy is arguably unwise.”

“Why, Father?” Stephen asked.

“The Dutch have purchased Hudson's island¹ for just a few beads”, his father said. “Their colony is almost midway between the Massachusetts Bay and Virginia ones that we own. Given that this king seems pro-Spanish despite parliament, we can hardly expect the Dutch to react well if and when our peoples over there eventually clash.”

“The Spanish are evil”, Aidan frowned. “Look what they and their Austrian cousins are doing to those poor German Protestants.”

“Do not call the enemy evil, son”, his father said in a tone of mid reproof. “That is exactly the mistake that this king makes; it validates the sort of actions that we last saw in the reign of Bloody Mary.”

Both boys shuddered at that. Mary Tudor had had at least three hundred Protestants burnt at the stake – she had claimed that by burning away their heretical and corrupt bodies she was saving their souls! – and only her death had saved the country from a higher body count. England had had a huge party to celebrate her passing.

“There is some news from the Continent as well”, the baron said, “and I am afraid it is bad. The Hapsburgs have managed to do a deal with the Transylvanians to stop them from following the Danish king into assisting the German Protestants. I had that in a letter today.”

“Anything else, sir?” John asked.

“Nothing of great import”, his father said dismissively.

Stephen was not sure why, but there was something odd in the way that he said that.

MDCXXVI

Less than an hour later those suspicions had been confirmed when his father had asked him and Aidan to follow him to his study once dinner was done, and then dismissed his elder son before handing his second one a letter.

“Jamie wrote to you”, he said casually. “Knowing what John is like, I thought it better not to give you the letter in front of him. You can take it down to the river and read it; I am sure that I can trust you to catch up with your lessons later.”

“Thank you, Father”, the boy said politely.

MDCXXVI

It was almost winter, but thankfully the heavy rains of autumn had finally abated although Stephen noted that the river was very high. He sat down in the shade of his favourite tree and unfurled his precious letter:

_'Dear Ste,'_

Stephen sniffed at the nickname. Ye Gods, he was so far gone that it was pitiful!

_'I am as you can imagine a bit low just now, our having had to hie back to Denmark with our tails between our legs. I expect the Emperor to try to grab some of Christian's German holdings to teach him a lesson, although I think that that will prove to be a mistake on his part. They are for the most part very well defended and the absence of the Imperial Armies may cause the Protestants behind them to rise up. What with the Transylvanians (or at least their Ottoman overlords) letting us down, we can but hope._

_One good thing about life in the army is that it makes you fit. Because I am a decent rider I have been assigned to one of the scouting patrols which scan ahead of the army to find the enemy. It means many hours in the saddle and most nights I am incredibly sore; despite it being winter I have to sleep_ au naturel _as all that chafing would otherwise keep me awake.'_

Stephen coughed. Nothing to do with an image of his friend naked in bed, and his conscience could shut up right now!

_'My term is as you know four years, so for now it looks as if I might be home in 1629. From what I read of the mess our king is making of things over there, I hope there is a country for me to come back to! He seems to think he is Louis of France and can do what he likes, and I am afraid that he will find out the hard way that England is different. The talk among my fellow Britons over here is that we may be called home to fight there one day, the way things are going._

_I suppose that you are sat under your tree as you read this. I miss you, my Captain Amerike, and still wear my leather band. I cannot send you anything this year, but know that I am thinking of you as a dear brother. I wonder if you too will be a soldier some day, and we might fight side by side like Castor and Pollux. Then again I seem to recall that one of them died horribly, so maybe not._

_Your true and loving friend_

_Bucky'_

Stephen sniffed again. He was obviously getting a cold.

MDCXXVI

_Notes:_   
_1) Manhattan Island. The area was first explored by English explorer Henry Hudson in 1608; the Dutch had settled Fort Amsterdam (later New Amsterdam, then New York) in 1624. Estimates of what the Dutch paid for Manhattan vary, but it was likely around £15,000 ($18,000) at 2021 prices._

MDCXXVI


	9. Lateness And Lances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The year starts in confusion, not helped by it being 'late'. War with the French now looks likely but at least the Spanish are being kept busy as their economy has just collapsed (again). There is a painful lesson about enclosures, and much more menacing for Stephen – his terrifying Aunt Agnes is now into the sexcapades of King Arthur's Court, and is writing to her sister about them. Yikes!

**January 1627**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

Stephen stared at his new tutor in confusion.

“So this is not 1627 after all?” he said dubiously.

“Yes it is¹”, Mr. Twelvetrees said patiently. “However our calendar is not quite accurate and loses a few seconds every year. It was drawn up by Julius Caesar a millennium and a half ago, and over that time it has slowly drifted away from the seasons. That was why Pope Gregory came up with his revised calendar about forty years back; the Catholic countries of Europe are on it for the most part so it is January the twelfth over there but January the second over here.” 

“Why did we not change to it as well, if it is better?” Stephen asked.

Mr. Twelvetrees looked expectantly at his brother.

“My Lord?”

“Because anything recommended by the head of the Catholic Church was obviously evil in some way and had to be shunned”, Aidan said, “even if it was sensible.”

Stephen just about resisted poking his tongue out at his know-all sibling. It was close, though.

“We shall change eventually”, Mr. Twelvetrees said. “We shall have to; even at ten days people are noting that the seasons seem to be starting later each year, and farmers need that sort of knowledge to know when to sow and harvest their crops.”

That was true, Stephen knew. Indeed it was a point of pride for both him and Aidan that their father (albeit also ordered by their mother) always laid in extra stores of food² for the estate workers in case of a famine. With so many people living on so little it was a wise move as well as making him popular in the area. And as an added bonus their annoying brother John had complained about the expense, which was why he was now walking twelve miles each day to get to and from his school in Haydon Bridge. To save on the cost of a horse.

The boys had very considerately gone down to the riverside to cheer, but had still got a suspicious look from their mother when they had gone back inside. Which had been just _annoying!_

MDCXXVII

**January 1627**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

“I suppose that one should feel sorry for her”, the baroness said over dinner a few days later, “but she does not make it easy.”

Stephen looked across at Aidan in surprise.

“The queen”, his elder brother explained. “She and the king have had another very public argument, this time over his seizing French ships in the Channel. Ostensibly it is to help the Huguenots, although mysteriously he seems to be keeping most of the money for himself rather than handing it on to them.”

“How 'forgetful' of him!” Stephen muttered.

“My own opinion of the king continues poor”, their father said, shaking his head at his middle son. “But I would like to think that not even he could get us into a war with France while we are still at war with Spain. It is fortunate for us that they are tied down with the Dutch³ still, and cannot send another Armada against us; I doubt that this king could muster much of a defence.”

“And he has not yet called another parliament?” their mother said. “He is barely scraping by at the moment; he surely cannot afford a second war on what he is stealing with his illegal tonnage and poundage.”

Her husband's silence was ominous indeed.

“What is it, dear?” the baroness asked.

“The king is trying a new method of getting money from his peoples”, he said heavily. “They are calling it forced loans. The king decides how much a lord or county can afford, then demands the money as a 'loan'.”

Both boys could hear the quotation marks.

“A loan that the loaner will see neither hide nor hair of in their lifetimes!” their mother scoffed. “Once again the king thinks that because he is God's representative on Earth, he can do what he likes. Idiot!”

MDCXXVII

**March 1627**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

As a second son Stephen should probably not have been along for this, but perhaps his father had recognized that leaving him behind in the house might lead to his strangling the pestilential John which would have been a bad thing because... because.... for some reason or other.

He really wished that his mother would not take to giving him a disapproving look for such a natural thought. Cain had done it to Abel right at the start of the Good Book, after all!

Their father had taken both boys to one of the old peel towers⁵ from a time when this area had been subject to frequent Scottish raids. Unlike most of them which had fallen into disrepair once the Border had fallen quiet under Great Elizabeth, this one had been maintained as it offered views of much of the estate (and, as the Baroness put it, her brother and predecessor had liked to spy on his people while they were working as he had definitely not purchased those perspective glasses for science purposes!). 

The three ascended the tower to the top and the baron pointed to the large field on the other side of the Allen from their house.

“Do you remember the news this morning about the ongoing riots in the south-west, boys?” he asked.

“Yes sir”, Aidan said. “The people there are angry that their lands were being taken away from them. I suppose that they cannot afford lawyers, being so poor.”

Their father shook his head.

“Unfortunately what is being done to them is legal, if questionable”, he said. “My wife's brother Jeremy was as you know preceded by his father Edward, and he did unto the people round here more or less what landowners in the south-west are doing now. The field next to the great one is the site of Staward village.”

Stephen had wondered where the name of the hall had come from.

“What happened to it, sir?” he asked.

“Many decades back parliament passed a law allowing some fields to be enclosed”, the baron said. “You see, fields then were nearly all split into strips each owned by different people, so it was very inefficient. A man could hardly grow anything on one strip if an animal being kept on the next one came and ate it. The idea was that the strips could be shared out so that they were grouped into larger areas that would then yield more food.”

“What went wrong, sir?” Aidan asked.

“The local landowner nearly always ended up deciding who got what”, their father explained, “so naturally any strip to which he had the most tenuous of claims was awarded by him, to him. Many people were forced out of their homes when they lost their lands, in villages that were already weakened by the terrible plague and, up here of course, the Border raids. Also some landowners, my father-in-law included, then took advantage by flattening the villages and leaving just a single house for a shepherd to look after the sheep that then grazed there.”

“That is horrible!” Stephen said firmly.

“That is life”, their father said. “People are basically in it for their own gain, as you will find out when you get older.”

MDCXXVII

**May 1627**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

A few days after his nineteenth birthday Stephen bounced into his room to find his elder brother there looking rather pale.

“What it is?” he asked, surprised. “I though that like the rest of us, you would be celebrating.”

“I suppose the collapse of the Spanish economy is good news”, Aidan admitted. “They will find it even more difficult to supply their troops in the Netherlands⁴ now, and I suppose many of them will be less keen to fight as a result.”

Stephen looked at him curiously.

“Should you not be at your gun lessons with Mr. Palliser?” he wondered.

Aidan nodded.

“I will be heading down there in a few minutes”, he said glumly. “I just needed a few minutes to myself first.”

An older and wiser sibling might have spotted the danger-sign there. Unfortunately Stephen did not.

“Why?” he asked.

Aidan looked straight at him.

“Mother just read me an excerpt of a story that Aunt Agnes send to her”, he said, shuddering. “An Arthurian tale, and it explained just why Sir Lancelot was so-called. Because he used his lance for.... things!”

The door slammed as his younger brother fled. Aidan smirked; it was only fair that others should suffer like he had. He would see if he could track down the pestilential John as well before the end of the day; that was what younger brothers were for, after all!

MDCXXVII

_Notes:_   
_1) Unlike its Julian predecessor the Gregorian calendar excludes certain leap-years, those that are divisible by 100 but not 400. Hence 1600 was a leap-year under both while 1700 was one only in countries still on the old calendar like Great Britain. This meant that those countries on the new calendar were thereafter eleven days ahead, and when in 1752 the British Empire changed over, Wednesday September 2nd was followed by Thursday September 14th. Matters were further complicated by the fact that New Year's Day was officially on the Annunciation (March 25th, nine months before Christmas Day) and was not changed to January 1st until the 1801 Irish Act of Union – when to compound matters further the government kept the start of the tax year on the revised date of April 6th, then (by the Gregorian Calendar) twelve days on from March 25th. Confused? Why the hell not?_   
_2) The importance of this sort of act can be weighed by the fact that while a modern family spends around 20% of its budget on food, the late Middle Ages family spent around 80%._   
_3) What was later called The Eighty Years' War (1568-1648). It bled into and formed part of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), both being concluded by the same set of peace treaties._   
_4) Then a generic term used for what is now Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands; the latter is commonly called Holland but this is in truth just its most populous province. The revolt against Spanish rule was across the whole area; in the eventual settlement the mostly Protestant seven northern provinces became the United Provinces of the Netherlands while the mostly Catholic ten southern ones remained under Spanish rule, becoming today's Belgium and Luxembourg although France annexed some southern parts of it._   
_5) Small defensible towers of which there were chains either side of the Anglo-Scottish border, which had fires to warn people and other towers nearby of invasion._

MDCXXVII


	10. Give And Take

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is more worrying news for Stephen concerning his lo.... friend, which leads to an unfortunate(ish) incident down by the riverside. Some unfortunate coast-dwellers in Iceland are in for both a change of career and a tan, the Duke of Buckingham once again proves that he is as dumb as a brick, and there are five knights who are forced to give the king a loan that they may or may not get back (hint: not).

**July 1627**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

Stephen had had another letter from Jamie despite his friend having little to report. The Imperial forces had indeed thrown themselves against the great Danish forts only to discover that there was indeed a great difference between open battle and siege warfare. The young soldier had been on a couple of raids and had sent him a coin that he had extracted as part of one haul. It would of course have been creepy for Stephen to have dug out that old pocket-watch case from the junk box and have kept said coin inside so that it was always close to his heart.

He really wished that his mother could stop with the knowing looks!

“I cannot believe that those evil Mohammedan pirates¹ have reached as far north as Iceland”, she snapped over dinner. “It is bad enough that they raid our shores, and the king spends all his money on that useless Buckingham, rather than ships to defend his own people.”

Stephen looked outside to where the rain was once again coming down heavily. It looked like being a poor harvest this year, although it was he knew even worse up in Scotland where the reports from the family's Fifeshire estates made for grim reading. His father would be having grain shipped up there as well as to the local people of the valley; the boy wished that more noblemen were like that but he knew that his father was the exception rather than the rule.

“One might as well expect caveman to not kill anything that cannot run away from them”, the baron said, yawning. He was tired because.... unfortunately Stephen knew just why he was tired having returned to the house at an inopportune moment earlier and then not thought as to why there was yelling from upstairs. Hearing 'get it up, you great stallion you!' was not something that any young boy should be subject to, no matter how bad he may or may not have been on the very rare occasion. Except possibly towards his younger brother, but that did not count. 

Because.

“Meanwhile Gorgeous George heads off to fight against the French at La Rochelle”, his wife said, looking sharply at her middle son for some reason. “I suppose that one should not pray for his ship to sink if only for the sake of all those sailors, although I am sure that many people will.”

“It is a pointless exercise”, the baron said. “King Louis will not allow a rebel city of an alien religion to remain on his flank, especially as he is eyeing up involvement in the terrible German Wars.”

“But why would he get involved, sir?” Aidan asked, surprised. “He is the most Catholic of monarchs.”

Their father chuckled.

“Like the Ottoman sultan, he will not allow religious differences to prevent his nation from seizing the chance to grab more land”, he said firmly. “After all, the Transylvanians only threatened to get involved in the German wars because the Ottomans wanted to and were using them as proxies, although at least they still got a few more towns out of it. Once the Huguenots are brought to heel we may see an even bigger war, especially with the Spanish economy in such dire straits. Spain surrounds France almost completely what with their lands in the Netherlands, Lorraine and Franco Condado². I doubt that Louis would try to cross the Pyrenees as there are only the coastal strips to go through, but a push eastwards and northwards? That I can definitely see.”

MDCXXVII

**August 1627**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

“Well, we have an emergency now all right!” the baroness said firmly. “That fool Buckingham has lost half the damn Navy yet failed to achieve a damn thing – except to be at war with the French and Spanish at one and the same time.”

“There is some good news”, her husband said, “albeit indirectly. My London manager has informed me that the Dutch have taken the fortress of Grol.”

“Is that important, sir?” Stephen asked.

“Yes”, his father said. “The last Spanish-held town in the east of the Netherlands; Frederick Henry will be able to divert all his energies southwards now, towards Flanders. That is the last thing that King Philip needs just now. He had better hope that the French do not find some reason to turn on him; they will be on the lookout for just such a thing.”

MDCXXVII

**September 1627**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

Stephen stood before his father, hanging his head.

“Look at me, young sir”, the baron commanded.

The young man shook but obeyed. His father looked exasperated, which was hardly a surprise given what had just transpired.

“I am indeed minded to punish you”, he said severely, “but I know that John came upon you while you were reading of your son's progress. Perhaps in future he might be less inclined to make fun of you – at least by the river!”

Stephen nodded. He had been reading of Luke's excellent progress – he wondered at that for a two-year-old, but was at least glad the boy was healthy and well away from any town or city – when John had happened on him and had joked that he was reading a love-letter from Jamie. The boys had tussled and Stephen, who was much stronger than his useless sibling, had rolled him into the river and held him under for a few seconds to teach him a lesson. Naturally this had been elevated to 'he tried to murder me!' when John had related it to their mother.

She had whacked him when she had learned the truth. Which he had more than deserved.

“Just make sure you read your letters somewhere well away from him in future”, his father said. “Aidan says that you can keep them in his safe now that he has his own study. Better there than somewhere they might be found, eh?”

Stephen nodded.

“Thank you, sir”, he said.

MDCXXVII

**November 1627**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

“John Corbet, Thomas Darnell, Walter Earle, Edmund Hampden and John Heveningham.”

Lady Amerike looked expectantly at her husband.

“The Five Knights³”, she said. “I presume that they lost their case?”

Her husband nodded. The gentlemen in question had challenged their being kept in gaol, but few had expected the judges appointed by the king to side with them. Especially after Charles had changed the wording of judicial appointments in a very visible threat to sack any judge who crossed him.

“So they stay in gaol”, he said, “and the king wins. Some will buckle and pay his forced loans but my sense is that it is not enough to keep him afloat, especially as he wants to make yet another expedition to help the poor Huguenots in La Rochelle. And for that he will need to call a parliament.”

“Surely he knows that such a thing is sure to fail?” Stephen wondered.

“You forget, he is God's representative on Earth”, his father said, “so he cannot fail. I really think that this king would put his own life on the line in the certain belief that God would see his dynasty right one way or another.”

MDCXXVII

**November 1627**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

“Salt.”

Stephen looked across the table at his father, who was looking vexed.

“Is it something that the king has done, sir?” Aidan ventured.

“You should not always assume the king to have acted stupidly, son”, their father said reprovingly.

Stephen was impressed. His brother could do a good judgemental silence.

“The king had granted two licences for salt production”, their father said, smiling slightly, “but he had worded them so badly that they came into conflict with each other. It is making us money but also making others annoyed, which is always bad eventually.”

“We have a royal licence?” Stephen asked, surprised.

“No”, their father said, “but we do own a share in the salt-pans that are part of our Fifeshire estates in Scotland. And since the English licence holders have of course forced up the price of something that everybody needs⁴, many people are turning to Scottish salt. Which of course the licence holders have then complained to the king about.”

“I would wager that the farmers are not happy, either”, his wife remarked.

“Salt-farmers?” Aidan asked in surprise. 

“No, tax-farmers”, their father said. “I am surprised that you have not come across them in your studies, son. Because the king's government is so ramshackle, he 'farms out' the right to collect certain taxes to people, usually favourites like the dreaded Buckingham. But this time they have clashed with the licence-holders and, now, the Scots. It is all a mess.”

“It is all Charles the First”, Lady Joan said. “Likely to go down in history as Charles the Worst!”

Both boys sniggered at that.

MDCXXVII

**December 1627**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

“The Duke of Mantua⁵ is dead.”

Stephen looked expectantly at his elder brother. For all that he was a mere nine months his senior (and both boys tried really hard not to think just what that meant!), Aidan had matured a lot now that he had reached twenty and seemed much older. Their father had even left him nominally in control of the estate when he had ridden to Newcastle on business earlier that autumn; true, the boys' mother had been really in charge but it was a start.

“That is in Italy, is it not?” Stephen asked.

His brother nodded.

“One of the very largest forts there, at the northern end of the peninsula”, he said. “And it spells trouble for the king.”

“Our king?” Stephen asked, surprised. “Why? Is he related to the late duke?”

Aidan shook his head.

“No”, he said, “but he was the last of his line. This is just what King Charles did not want, the French getting a _causus belli_ to start that war with the Spanish that they are looking for.”

“You think that he might get involved because of his wife?” Stephen asked. “Surely not? They do not even talk to each other!”

“English foreign policy has always been to maintain the balance of power on the Continent, so a more powerful France would upset that”, Aidan said. “Either way it will cost the king money – money that he does not have despite those forced loans that he keep stealing from his people. There will have to be another parliament for sure now – and I can guarantee that it will not be overflowing with goodwill towards our lofty monarch!”

MDCXXVII

_Notes:_   
_1) Exact figures are unavailable, but the number of people enslaved may well have been in excess of a million. Not to worry, though – I'm sure that those who demand reparations for the slave trade will be including this in their demands. They probably just haven't gotten around to it yet and why are those crickets so damn loud?_   
_2) Now Franche-Comté, the area around Besançon in eastern France. The Spanish name meant literally 'free county', as it pretty much ran its own affairs._   
_3) Another of the King's famous Pyrrhic victories. He won the case, but resistance to the forced loans intensified as people again felt that he had cheated and he was compelled to release the knights early the following year._   
_4) Salt was the only practical way of preserving food for times of hardship, like winter. The king argued that it was a licence, not a tax, so that was all right. No-one was convinced._   
_5) Vincent the Second (b. 1594). Although duke for little over a year he had foreseen the problems of his not having any children and had tried to make arrangements for the peaceful accession of his great-nephew Charles, but the Great Powers had other ideas. This Charles's son eventually became duke as Charles the Second (ruled 1637-1665)._

MDCXXVII


	11. Third Time's The Charm?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The seemingly endless Continental Wars continue to go nowhere fast, Stephen once again has a sore backside, and we meet some twenty-something whipper-snapper called Oliver Cromwell who will surely fade from history pretty soon. King Charles tries for a third parliament which is a vast improv.... all right, it is as 'successful' as his first two, and things are not helped when he shows just what he thinks of them by promising to make someone they dislike a bishop.

**January 1628**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

Once again Stephen was impressed with how quickly news could travel over three hundred miles from London to rural Hexhamshire. This time even before it had actually happened!

“If you do end up in parliament”, his father explained, “one thing that you will learn quickly is that all institutions leak. And the royal court, where information is power, leaks more than all of them.”

“The king is not going to call for another parliament until the last day of the month, which is over a week away”, Stephen said. “Why the delay?”

“Because he hopes to use the interim to organize the sheriffs running the votes so that they only return candidates that he likes.”

“I dare say it does not matter”, Stephen sighed. “Iit will all end in his being totally confused as to why parliament does not give him everything he wants because he is God's representative on Earth, so he _must_ have it.”

His father shook his head at him. Stephen had no idea why; he was quite right in that.

“Buckingham has also commissioned another painting of himself”, the baron said, “this time as the god Mercury, patron of the arts.”

“Which will annoy parliament even more”, Stephen said, “as they will say that their subsidies¹ are paying for that painting.”

“Very true”, his father agreed. “One can only hope that it does not all end in tears.”

MDCXXVIII

**February 1628**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

There was probably some irony that Jamie's next letter arrived on St. Valentine's Day but Stephen did not see it. Fortunately he did not see his younger brother either; now almost seventeen John had decided that he was set on a military career and had been sent to a military school over in Carlisle. Stephen would have said how much he missed him, but their mother Disapproved of her sons lying like that. Besides, all those unreliable guns.... surely there had to be a chance of an accident sooner or later?

He did not even need to check to see his mother's disapproving look.

There was little new in his friend's letter, which stated that as he had expected not much was actually happening just now. The Holy Roman Emperor was still trying to take the Danish fortresses in northern Germany and getting nowhere, largely because his many sub-princes resented his actions and were if not obstructing him then not exactly rushing to help. Jamie himself had been pulled away from the front lines as King Christian was now worrying that Sweden might take advantage of Danish preoccupations, so his friend was currently acting as a messenger checking up on the many and far-flung border fortresses². He said that he found it boring, but Stephen was relieved that for now at least he was a long way away from the battlefield.

He had something else to include in his letter back to his friend, for most unusually his cousin Peter had for once faced opposition in standing for parliament. Fortunately the voters of Hexhamshire had done the right thing and the challenger had not even bothered to turn up for the declaration³. So Stephen would be accompanying his cousin down to London again to see whether or not this parliament would be any better than its two predecessors.

Stephen thought it was more likely that he would be able to swim all the way to Denmark to see his friend!

MDCXXVIII

**March 1628**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

The journey to London had been as uncomfortable as last time, and Stephen really wished these scientists who kept prattling on about a 'brave new world' might set themselves to sorting out the country's roads before going onto bigger things. Or at least invent mail-coaches that did not bounce so much! He mentioned it to his cousin who smiled.

“It would be better if the roads were all owned by the king and kept up through taxation”, he grumbled. “I am sure such a system would yield much more tax income through increased trade. But with this king in particular no-one trusts him not to cream off all the money for other purposes, like for Buckingham's new painting.”

“Some bits of the road down were all right”, Stephen observed. “But most of it was just dreadful!”

“An ancient law means that anywhere the king travels becomes the King's Highway”, his cousin explained, “which means that the parishes it passes through are then liable for the upkeep of it. As you can imagine, many of them have a very low idea of what constitutes 'upkeep'.”

Stephen's still sore backside could attest to that.

“Nor has the king helped matters by trying to rig things”, Peter went on. “In the last parliament he tried to stop those most loudly against him by appointing them sheriffs of their local counties, which made them ineligible to stand for parliament. The men he got instead were just as bad so he did not try it this time, but the resentment is still there. Like all his actions, it just made a bad situation worse.”

“Serves him right”, said Stephen unsympathetically. “Did your meeting with your fellow member the other night go well?”

“John Hampden, the member for Wendover in Buckinghamshire, and yes”, his cousin said. “He is one of the more moderate fellows to speak out against the king's stupidity, and a very clever man. He brought a young cousin along, who is entering the house for the first time. An unchancy fellow from up in the Fens; he hardly said a word all evening.”

“What was his name?” Stephen asked.

“Oliver Cromwell”, his cousin said. “You might as well mark it – you will never hear of him again once this parliament is over, which it will be soon enough.”

MDCXXVIII 

**March 1628**  
 **Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

“The king was in a foul mood today”, Peter said a few days later.

“He was in parliament?” Stephen asked, surprised. “I thought that the monarch never went there except to open a new session?”

“No, just what I heard on the grapevine”, his cousin said. “Two things have upset him, the first of which is that for some inexplicable reason we rejected his demands that we give him all the money he wants and then he might deign to possibly perhaps consider looking at our grievances at some unspecified future date if the mood took him. Instead the members are drawing up something they are calling the Petition of Right, listing all the things that kings of England should not do according to precedent.”

“I can see him taking that well!” Stephen smiled.

“And Sir Edward Coke⁴ may be in his late seventies but he has just published another set of works that will have the royal teeth grating”, Peter said. “His 'Institutes' assert that the king is acting illegally by breaching Magna Carta in the way he is dealing with parliament.”

“Is he?” Stephen asked dubiously.

“The law is but words”, his cousin said, “and words can too often be read to suit what the reader wishes them to say. But as the Five Knights case showed, the king had already subdued the judiciary by sacking or threatening to sack anyone who does not do as he wishes. A foolish act in the long run; the people want to and need to respect the law, but if they believe that the scales are rigged against them.....”

He trailed off and looked meaningfully at his cousin. Stephen saw at once what he meant; if there were no legal means of redress then all that was left was revolt. He shuddered at the thought.

MDCXXVIII

**June 1628**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

“You should not assume that the king has done something unwise again.”

Stephen was impressed. His cousin had almost kept a straight face while saying that. He quirked an eyebrow at him and Peter sighed heavily.

“Parliament impeached Roger Maynwaring, a priest who preached a sermon about Divine Right and how everyone should just do what they were told”, he said. “Of course the king not only granted him clemency but gave him a nice fat living, and has promised him a prime bishopric when one becomes available⁵.”

“Not Canterbury, surely?” Stephen asked.

“I would like to think that not even this king is stupid enough to do that”, Peter said, “but the evidence is against it. No, he has that idiot William Laud, Buckingham's personal chaplain, lined up for that when poor Abbot dies. He is doing the job now in all but name, the pompous ass.”

His cousin had explained that the current Primate of All England, George Abbot, was very much against the king's current policies. As such he had been deprived of virtually all power; it must have annoyed the king that legally he could not remove him from office but at least he was silenced.

“Buckingham”, Stephen sighed. “I wonder what fool thing he will do next to make the king yet more unpopular?”

MDCXXVIII

_Notes:_   
_1) Legally only parliament could levy taxes, but this was cloaked in that when the king needed money, they usually levied a number of taxes on different items, these being referred to as subsidies. In times of peace it was expected that the king would 'live of his own', i.e. live off the moneys from the Crown lands, but the revenues from that had dropped sharply in recent times._   
_2) Denmark owned the provinces of Halland, Blekinge, Scania and also the islands of Gotland and Bornholm, now all part of Sweden. It was also in a Personal Union with Norway, so one way or another Jamie was far away from the front line in northern Germany._   
_3) Votes were generally carried out in one of three ways. Firstly, the supporters of the candidates would form into groups and shout their support, with the loudest shouters winning. Secondly, the supporters would file past the sheriff and be counted; naturally both these were open to abuse. The third method was better but very rare; voters would sign their names under their preferred candidate._   
_4) Sir Edward Coke (b. 1552), Chief Justice of England 1613-1616. His work drew on Magna Carta, interpreting the famous phrase that no free man should be stripped of his rights to mean that the king doing anything to damage or hurt any man – say by levying taxes on him without a parliament – was illegal. Charles had his books seized and burned but the great man's works survived, and were fundamental in the early years of American independence._   
_5) Maynwaring was made Dean of Worcester in 1634 and Bishop of St. David's in 1636. In 1641 he was forced to flee to Ireland when a resurgent parliament turned on him. Like George Abbot he retained his titular posts until his death (1653) but he had lost all power and income arising from them._

MDCXXVIII


	12. Death On Display

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The king fails to gauge the public mood (see under ursine creatures defecating in a woodland environment), although one of his supporters finds it out the hard way, which makes Stephen throw up as he sees just how bloody history can be. Then in a grimy Portsmouth street there is a man with a dagger, followed by a whole load of partying and another unwise decision by the king (see also under ursine creatures defecating in a woodland environment).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Non-graphic mention of under-aged rape (real-life event).

**June 1628**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

Stephen had once thought it a fine thing to be there when history was being made. And today he had seen just that.

Then he had come home and thrown up.

“It was horrible!” he told his cousin as he sat there shuddering. “The people were coming out of the theatre and one of them shouted, “that's him, Doctor Lambe!” I have never seen a mob behave like that; the fellow was stoned to death and then just torn apart.”

“A horrible death”, Peter said, “but not perhaps undeserved. He was a friend of Buckingham and, many thought, was using black magic to corrupt him.”

“Like Buckingham needs corrupting!” Stephen snorted. “Why do you call such an act underserved?”

His cousin hesitated.

“I did not tell you”, he said, “because it is disgusting even for this city, but last year Lambe – he is not a real doctor by the way – was alleged to have raped an eleven-year-old girl. To be fair to him – which I am not really inclined to be – the whole thing may have been concocted by the girl's father who owed him money, but the thing was that people believed him guilty. He was tried and sentenced to death but the king and the duke kept having his execution deferred. Today they learned the hard way that the London mob could not be gainsaid.”

Stephen shook again at the terrible memory. All those people had been happy to murder someone, albeit someone who had certainly deserved death. The duke must be wondering tonight; was he himself safe?

MDCXXVIII

He was not.

MDCXXVIII

**August 1628**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

“Two whole days?”

Stephen looked incredulously at his cousin. This time he had missed out on seeing history (or at least its consequences) as he had ridden down to the estate's property in Guildford, nearly a day's ride from Westminster, and had spent two nights in the Surrey town before returning to the capital. While he had been there the Duke of Buckingham had been stabbed to death in a Portsmouth street! In broad daylight! 

Judging from the happy faces and partying that he had seen both in the town and all along the road, others had heard the news too and were taking it well enough. Certainly a lot better than the king.

“The duke was stabbed by a fellow called John Felton”, Peter said. “The reports say that he had been denied a promotion by the duke and had also lost a court case to him, so was embittered enough to lie in wait for him when he was visiting the Fleet.”

Stephen thought instinctively of what he had once heard about soldiers being left broken or damaged by war. And of a certain soldier still far away.

“And the king has only now come out of his room”, he said with a sigh. “I almost wish that I could see his face when he sees everyone celebrating the death of his favourite; he can no longer shut himself away from the reality of just how unpopular he was.”

His cousin was strangely silent.

“What is it?” Stephen asked.

“I rather fear that we will find ourselves out of the frying-pan and into the fire over Buckingham's removal”, Peter said ruefully. “One of two things will happen, and neither of them will be good. Either the king will take a new favourite – and I doubt that because I do not think he will allow himself to become beholden to anyone like that again. He only accepted Buckingham because he had been his late father’s favourite; he is always generous to such men.”

“Or?” Stephen pressed.

“Or”, his cousin said, “he will become closer¹ to his Catholic queen. And just like when Buckingham replaced Carr², the 'cure' could be even worse than the original disease!”

MDCXXVIII

**September 1628**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

Letters were rare enough things, so for Stephen to get three in two days was rather remarkable. The first was from his brother Aidan; apparently the latter's intended Lady Patricia Glasson had visited Staward again 'and it was damnably unfair that you were not here to suffer ear-ache with me!' Stephen may or may not have sniggered at his brother's discomfiture (he did).

The very next day he received two more letters. The first was the annual report on his son's progress; at three Luke could now write his name if almost illegibly, and a sample of his 'writing' was enclosed for the father to see. Stephen might have shed a tear at that, but there was no-one there to see him so he did not.

The third letter was from Jamie, which contained mixed news. On the plus side the Holy Roman Emperor had given up the siege of the fortress at Stralsund, which Stephen supposed was good news for the Protestant Cause. However that also meant that his friend would be out in the field again, harassing the Imperial army as it withdrew southwards. He knew that Jamie only had one more year there, but then many men chose to sign up for a further term.

Sighing, he stared out of the window across Whitehall Place to the royal palace opposite, he and his cousin having moved into the end house while the middle one was having some essential repairs done to it. At least the weather was good this year which would mean a better harvest. And over there was their ultimate lord and master, still apparently angry that the people of London had been so jubilant at his favourite's demise. Peter had said that parliament had come close to expressing public approval at the duke's death, which would surely have only made relations with the monarch even worse.

It was all just a mess!

MDCXXVIII

**October 1628**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

“I do not understand politics”, Stephen sighed. “I would have thought that La Rochelle falling would have been bad for Protestants.”

“It certainly dooms the Cause in France”, his uncle agreed, “but with King Louis already fighting the Spanish over the Mantuan Succession, that may be a good thing for once. It means that he will be able to focus all his attention against the Hapsburgs, and possibly even assist the German Protestants when the time is right.”

“And grab himself some nice new lands in the southern Netherlands or along the Rhine”, Stephen said. 

“You are far too cynical for one so young”, his cousin said reprovingly. 

“A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist”, Stephen countered. “What is this other news from this place called Matanzas?”

“The Dutch have achieved what we could not”, his cousin said. “They ambushed a Spanish treasure-fleet off Cuba and got it all back to their own lands before anyone found out. The reports vary as they will, but taking a middle line it looks like they have enough gold to fund their government for the best part of a year³.”

“Their government and their war against the gold's former owners”, Stephen said. 

“The Spanish were reported to be massing an army to try to retake the eastern Netherlands”, his cousin said, “but that is impossible now. No gold means no pay for the troops who will begin to slip away once they hear that; I am sure that the Dutch will make sure that they are informed. I would not be surprised if even King Philip starts thinking about peace soon. With his country in such a mess, he surely has little choice.”

MDCXXVIII

**December 1628**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

“We may have a problem.”

Stephen looked at his cousin expectantly.

“What?” he asked. “It cannot be as bad as the one facing the king, whose hissy-fit is being talked of everywhere.”

“It was exceptionally stupid of him to have Felton's body displayed in Portsmouth, even if it was the scene of his crime”, Peter said. “How exactly did he think that people would react to someone who removed a blight from the nation? That he had to order the body taken down after the locals started venerating it just made things even worse. No, I am referring to one Thomas Wentworth.”

Stephen frowned at the name, which he was sure he had heard but could not place.

“One of the members for Yorkshire”, his cousin said. “On the softer wing of those against the king, I always thought, and rumours about him defecting have been rife since summer. His hatred of Buckingham was his chief motive for opposition so with the duke dead, he is now prepared to work with the king. He has been made President of the Council of the North⁴.”

Stephen saw what that meant at once. The three outlying English regions – Ireland, Wales and the North – each had their own governing council whose leader was king in his little domain in all but name. And not someone that anyone with any sense would cross, least of all a minor family like the Amerikes.

“Has our family had dealings with him before?” he asked anxiously.

“Not yet”, his cousin said, “which is a good thing. He is an excellent administrator but he has a bad habit for making enemies through sheer tactlessness. He would have made an excellent Chancellor of the Exchequer but the only way Cottington will leave that post is in a coffin! Besides, the king does not like smart men.”

“Why not?” Stephen asked, puzzled.

“After Buckingham he has indeed resolved to never allow one man to have so much power again”, his cousin said. “The way in which he scattered the duke's many titles and posts showed that too. Worse, the queen is expecting and apparently the king is as devoted to her now as he was to Buckingham.”

“Kings are meant to be devoted to their wives”, Stephen observed. “Although the fact that she is expecting so soon... clearly he cannot have mourned Buckingham for that long.”

His cousin shook his head at his cynicism.

“Wives should know their place”, Peter said. “Poor Anne Boleyn showed what happened when that rule is not followed. And I fear that this queen is unwise enough to use her new-found strength push the Old Faith at court, in the hope that the country will then just follow like sheep back into the fold. Worse, people will increasingly suspect her husband of wanting to convert – and that could bring those terrible German wars over here!”

Stephen shuddered at such a dreadful prospect.

MDCXXVIII

_Notes:_   
_1) Henrietta Maria's first child was born nine months and ten days after the king emerged from his 'mourning'._   
_2) Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset (b. 1587). A favourite of the late king James, he had wished to marry Lady Frances Howard who, rather disobligingly, was already married to Robert, Earl of Essex. The king had forced Essex to agree to a divorce on the grounds of his impotence (this did not for some strange reason endear him to the Stuarts, as we will see later), but Carr's friend Sir Thomas Overbury had objected to the marriage. He was thrown into the Tower on false charges and died soon after, likely poisoned by the Howards. Suspicion mounted against Carr and his new wife, and they were eventually tried and sentenced to death; King James commuted their sentences but they were finished as a political power._   
_3) There were to be some consequences for England down the line from this. When the captured ships were being taken back to the Netherlands, young Prince Frederick, eldest son of the deposed Frederick of the Rhine and therefore King Charles's nephew, went to see them but was drowned in an accident. This meant that his younger brother Charles Louis became heir to the landless title, and he would play a role in the coming wars as would his younger brothers Rupert and Maurice._   
_4) Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, Westmorland and Cumberland. The county of Cheshire, which might have seemed to have fitted into this 'ancient Kingdom of Northumbria' group, had its own administration tied in with that of neighbouring Wales; both were traditionally the domains of the heir to the throne._

MDCXXVIII


	13. The Look Of Loathing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the Duke of Buckingham's murder, things start badly and then get worse. A whole lot of people decide to sail off to the New World while the king finally loses his temper with parliament and ends their sitting, starting his Personal Rule (or Eleven Years' Tyranny, depending on your viewpoint). Meanwhile Stephen worries even more about his absent friend.

**January 1629**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

Parliament might have started a new session, but Stephen knew from his cousin's face when he came in that day that it had not gone well.

“I am guessing that your fellow members will still not treat with the king?” he asked.

“Not a chance!” he said. “The king is still openly resentful at the country's celebrations for his favourite's death, and the look that he gave Eliot when he stood up and criticized him for levying tonnage and poundage without a parliament – I hope that my fellow member has a padded suit and avoids any dark alleys.”

Stephen was alarmed at that.

“The king would sanction such an act?” he asked.

“Not directly”, his cousin said, “but he has several hot-headed supporters who might and I am sure that he would not shed a tear if the worst happened. He would of course be shocked at such a thing, so much that the assailant would certainly have the time to flee the country before they could be apprehended. Then he would say how dreadful that was while encouraging his Continental brethren not to hand them back.”

“But everyone would believe that he had sanctioned it anyway”, Stephen sighed, “because they think that that is his nature.”

“He is God's man on Earth, or so he claims”, Peter sighed. “It is not for me to criticize the Good Lord, so I can only presume that He had his reasons.”

MDCXXIX

**February 1629**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

“Have you ever thought of going?”

Peter looked up from his papers at his cousin.

“Where?” he asked, confused.

“Those ships that are sailing off to the Massachusetts Bay Colony today”, Stephen said. “If it works, the people on them will be fathers – and mothers – of a new nation. That would be a fine thing, I suppose.”

“I am happy here, thank you”, his cousin said. “I have had a letter from your father.”

“Any news from home?” Stephen asked.

“If you mean 'has your irritating younger brother had some horrible and fatal accident’, then I am afraid not”, Peter grinned, ignoring his cousin's huff. “The king has approached your father and offered him a baronetcy.”

“I do not see the difference between that and a barony”, Stephen said, “and my father has the latter already courtesy of my mother.”

“From what I know of them your father has rather as lot courtesy of your mother!” Peter grinned, earning himself another glare. “The king hopes that Ellis will fork over three hundred and fifty pounds¹ so he can have a second title in the family. There is a great deal of difference in those two extra letters; a baronet is not a member of the nobility, just someone who was stupid enough to pay the monarch a load of money for a fancy title for him and possibly also for his successors.”

“You mean a title for you?” Stephen asked. “Or me even?”

His cousin chuckled.

“I am happy being plain Peter Amerike”, he said, “especially when the cost of being a baronet is so great. Although I would not put it past this king to turn around one day and insist on the likes of me buying a title whether I want it or not, and if I refuse then fining me, say, three hundred and fifty pounds!”

“And you call me a cynic”, Stephen said dryly.

“Must run in the family”, his cousin said. “I blame you!”

Stephen glared at him. Again.

MDCXXIX

**March 1629**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

“Wentworth's betrayal seems only to have made Eliot and his crew even madder”, Peter said when he came in dripping from a late winter downpour.

“What are they complaining about now?” Stephen asked.

“Religion”, his cousin said and he doffed his coat. “A touchy enough subject at the best of times, which these are not, and worse given the queen's overt Catholicism. The members claim that William Laud's reforms are aimed at shifting the Church one step at a time back towards her religion.”

“But you do not think that they are?” Stephen asked.

“No”, his cousin said. “As I have said before, both Laud and the king are true Protestants; I would wager a guinea² on that. But that is not the issue here. Because of the king's questionable dealings in the past, people will think he is lying when he says that that is not his end game. Especially when his wife persuades members of the Court to convert to her bastard faith and the king merely tuts or 'has a quiet word'.”

“Like you once said”, Stephen said. “History is not just what happens but what people believe is happening, which determines how they behave.”

“There were murmurings against the queen in today's session”, Peter said, “and I am a Dutchman if those have not already reached the king's ears. After losing Buckingham he will not just stand idly by and watch his enemies get anywhere near his now beloved wife. I think we had better start packing for a return to Hexhamshire, cousin.”

MDCXXIX

**March 1629**   
**Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**

It took barely a week for Peter's fears to be proven all too accurate. Stephen knew what had happened from his cousin's face when he came in.

“The king?” he asked.

Peter nodded

“The session is over!” he said. “And what a way to finish!”

A servant brought him a whisky and he downed it in one go, wincing as it burned his throat. He took a deep breath before continuing.

“No-one mentioned her by name, but there was speech after speech against 'some malign personage _close_ to the king”, he said. “Then that pipsqueak Speaker Finch³ rose, clearly intending to put an end to the session, so two members held him down to stop him while they carried on speaking. The King was furious; he has thrown Eliot in gaol. Again!”

Stephen knew that the animosity between the king and Sir John Eliot ran deep indeed, especially after the fellow had made a speech attacking Buckingham just days before his assassination. He felt though that kings, especially given all their power, really should not hold grudges.

“The king will try to run the country without parliament”, Peter sighed, “and again will find out that that is impossible. I dare say we will be back in a year or two's time, cousin. Let us finish packing and then gird our loins for the nightmare that is the journey home.”

Stephen groaned. And knowing his luck there might even be another parliament later this year, so another agonizing journey south for him to endure.

MDCXXIX

**May 1629**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

Stephen's enjoyment at being home was curtailed by the fact that his brother John was there too (still no fatal accident despite all those prayers, damnation!). Fortunately the pest was studying for an examination that he had to take as part of his training, and even better, his work thus far had been so poor that if he failed this test he would be thrown out. Stephen was torn between wishing for that and the knowledge that it might well result in the annoyance being home more than he was now. Ugh!

Aidan was away working on their Scottish estates so Stephen was alone most of the time. The only news that came was when he heard that the king had formally ended the war with France; his father explained that since there was no parliament the king could not really afford wars let alone with the two most powerful nations on the planet. 

A couple of weeks after that development his father called him to his study.

“There is news from London”, he said. “The queen gave birth to a son but he died almost immediately.”

Stephen was instinctively sorry for the woman. Childbirth was a dangerous time for any woman these days and survival rates for their children were not good.

“More importantly, for you perhaps, there is another letter from Jamie”, his father said, handing him the letter and an atlas. “He wrote to your mother and mentioned where he was fighting, so I looked it up. I thought that you might like to see it on a map.”

“Thank you, sir”, Stephen said dutifully, taking the items and leaving.

MDCXXIX

Jamie was back in the front line, which immediately worried Stephen little as he could do about it. They were besieging a place called 's-Hertogenbosch which Stephen first thought his friend must have misspelled or at least been drunk while writing it, but luckily he mentioned that it lay south-east of Amsterdam so Stephen was able to find it on the map. What also worried him was how animated Jamie sounded, telling him that if they could take this one town then the whole Spanish defensive line would crumble.

He had the horrible feeling that he might be set to lose his friend for even longer. And the trouble with thinking the worst was having to live with so often being right.

MDCXXIX

_Notes:_   
_1) About £66,000 ($80,000) at 2021 prices._   
_2) A coin worth 21 shillings (£1.05), about £200 ($240) at 2021 prices. The gold to make it came from the Guinea region of west Africa._   
_3) John Finch (b. 1584). The sort of lick-spittle who gave lick-spittles a bad name. One of the worst Speakers ever until the twenty-first century threw up Michael Martin and John Bercow in quick succession. Finch was made a Baron in 1640 but a resurgent parliament soon forced him to flee to the United Provinces. He narrowly survived these times, dying in late 1660 just after his return to England upon the Restoration._

MDCXXIX


	14. Back In Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> King Charles decides that his subjects should be capable of time travel, and that they can therefore be fined if they fail so to do. Aidan Amerike has to get married, while Stephen receives shocking news from the Continent but as he is a man he does not cry. The French start fighting without actually fighting, and Stephen pays what will turn out to be his first visit to Holy Island.

**June 1629**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

Stephen stared out of the window at the rain still beating down outside. Spring had been a washout and although summer was now officially here, someone had apparently forgotten to inform the English weather. His father had already started to buy in extra grain supplies for his estate workers as the harvest looked set to be a poor one.

One good thing was that his annoying brother John had failed his examination but, after pressure from their father (and, Stephen suspected, a fair sum of money) one of his friends who ran the Trained Bands¹ had offered him a post as a commander. True, his pestilential brother would be commanding a group of men who if armed with a firearm would likely be more dangerous to each other that to the enemy, so again there was always the chance that he might get shot.

It was still unfair that when he had gone down to dinner that evening, Stephen's mother had looked at him so disapprovingly!

MDCXXIX

**August 1629**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

“Well, now we know how the king intends to get by without parliament.”

Stephen and his mother looked at the Baron.

“How, dear?” Lady Joan asked.

“By bending the law until it breaks”, he said grimly. “This is from Edgar. As a knight of the realm the king has fined him because he did not bring the customary gift with him when he attended the coronation three years back.”

They both frowned.

“Is that the law?” Stephen asked dubiously.

“Apparently it is”, his father said. “Not a law that has been enforced any time in the past few centuries, but that bastard Noy² is now advising the king and he suggested it. It is not a large amount, but levied on every knight in the land it will raise the king a small fortune.”

“It is unfair that people should be punished for breaking a law they did not even know existed”, Stephen said. “Or still existed.”

“I rather fear that we will see a lot more of this sort of thing”, his father sighed. “This king is determined to rule without parliament, and while that is possible, he can only do it by such methods as this. It will not make him popular.”

“After the country's reaction to Buckingham's death, this king does not care for his country”, the Baroness said. “This sort of thing makes me so mad!”

She was giving her husband the Look again. Stephen hastily excused himself and went out for a walk. A fast one!

MDCXXIX

**September 1629**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

Mr. Twelvetrees rapped sharply on the desk, making Stephen jump.

“Pay attention, boy!” the tutor said sharply. “If you are going into politics then a knowledge of Continental history will be important.”

“It all seems so far away”, Stephen sighed. “Sweden up there at the icy top of Europe, and Poland far away to the east. Why should either of them concern us?”

“Because the Swedes have come out on top in their recent war with the Poles”, the tutor said, “and King Gustavus Adolphus has been putting out indications that he may ride to the aid of the German Protestants.”

“Can his country afford that?” Stephen asked, surprised. “I know that it looks large on the map but much of it is ice and tundra, surely?”

“Poor quality land”, the tutor conceded, “but that is where the French come in.”

Stephen was confused.

“King Louis has long wanted to use the Emperor's preoccupations with his religious troubles to grab more land for himself”, the tutor said, “but he is already engaged with the Spanish in Mantua as well as finishing off the last flickering embers of the Huguenot rebellions. What better way to achieve his ends, therefore, than to pay the Swedes to fight for him? Swedish swords paid for by French funds.”

“Would that not risk starting an open way between Paris and Vienna?” Stephen asked.

“How?” the tutor countered. “It would be the Swedes who would be doing the actual fighting, and the Emperor would be stretched indeed to take on them, the German Protestants and the French all at the same time. Unless he had actual proof of the link, he could do nothing.”

Stephen had to admit that he was right. And he still worried for his friend, over there in the midst of all the fighting. What if the worst happened and he lost him?

MDCXXIX

The worst did not happen. But the second-worst did.

MDCXXIX

**September 1629**   
**Lindisfarne, County Durham³, ENGLAND**

Most of the family's Northumbrian landholdings were in the former county that gave them their title, but they also held a stretch of land near the town of Belford on the coast. Stephen's father had taken him there to see it; on the way his father had to send a servant back to the house for some papers that he had forgotten, and when the fellow returned he had two letters for the young man with him. One was the annual report on his son who was progressing very well, which pleased Stephen.

The second letter, however, was devastating. It was from Jamie, announcing that they had taken.... that town that he had been besieging and that, just as Stephen had feared, he intended to stay on for a further three years. So he would not see his friend until the autumn of 1632.

Stephen sat in the ruins of the monastery where monks had once prayed to the Glory of God, and where Vikings had once raided and pillaged (or as Mr. Twelvetrees had quipped regarding the tendency of some modern writers to pick and choose their historical 'facts', had ‘liberated all that imprisoned gold’). The wind blowing off the German Ocean was a keen one that day, and it made the young man's eyes water. 

He gave his father serious credit for not commenting on that fact when he rejoined him later.

MDCXXIX

**October 1629**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

“I sometimes wonder if those sugar islands are worth it”, Stephen's father sighed as he read the latest report from London. “The Spanish have destroyed our settlement on the island of Nevis, having wiped out St. Kitts a few months back.”

“I thought that they were looking for peace?” Stephen asked.

“They are”, his father said, “but with all wars there is always a rush of activity at the end when each side tried to get into a position of strength from which to negotiate. And remember; the Pope formally granted all the Americas save Brazil to Spain, so they think that they have the right to the whole continent.”

“Much as the king thinks he has the right to everyone else's money”, Stephen sighed. “Is Aidan all right?”

His elder brother had been due to return to Staward for Christmas but their father had received a letter from his London agents asking that someone come down and sign some important documents. Ironically it was faster for the eldest son to take a ship there despite being further away, as he was on the coast and could easily take a ship.

“He is excited at the prospect of visiting the metropolis”, his father smiled. “A last burst of freedom, perhaps.”

Stephen knew what he meant.

MDCXXIX

**December 1629**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

A wedding. A time of joy and celebration, when arguably the groom really should not have been looking like a condemned man. But the Aidan was marrying Patricia Glasson, so.....

“How was London?” Stephen said, hoping to cheer his brother up a little.

“I went to a theatre where they had a French troupe performing”, Aidan said. “You will not believe this, but they actually had _female_ actors playing some of the parts. The Queen’s idea, of course! The audience did not like it at all and stoned them off the stage.”

“Whereas later you will be having a woman's parts.....”

Aidan gave him a death-glare. Stephen chuckled.

“Father will likely be looking round for someone for me and John soon, I suppose”, he said.

To his surprise his elder brother snorted at that.

“What?” Stephen asked, puzzled.

“I doubt that the two million or so women in England can find anyone in their ranks with poor enough taste to accept Johnnie”, he said disdainfully. “And Mother has long ago told Father that you are a lost cause.”

Stephen looked at him in confusion.

“Why?” he asked.

“Jamie!” Aidan said with a grin. “You might never marry him, but your heart is his as much as his is yours. Just make sure that when you do do the do, you do not provide me with any details.”

Stephen blushed fiercely.

“It is not like that”, he said weakly.

“No”, Aidan said wryly, “but you have so much, Ste. You have a healthy son, your freedom, and someone who loves you as much as you love him. Just..... be careful. This is the seventeenth century after all.”

“I will”, Stephen promised.

MDCXXIX

_Notes:_   
_1) The closest thing England had to an army; county- and city-based groups of men who were supposed to be regularly trained in order to defend their home towns. Their training was dependent on the keenness (or not) of whoever was in charge of their area. They hated going beyond their borders and it took an exceptional commander to make them do it, as we will soon see._   
_2) William Noy (b. 1577). An unusual fellow who had been the member for Helston in Cornwall, he had not taken a degree yet became a lawyer and was famed for his precise knowledge of the law. He would become Attorney-General two years later and would be hated for uncovering old taxes like this; like with Laud he had held the post in all but name already as the incumbent Sir Robert Heath had been disgraced by a law-fixing scandal the year before._   
_3) Holy Island or Lindisfarne lay in Islandshire, one of three enclaves of County Durham that lay mostly inside the boundaries of neighbouring Northumberland. The other two were Bedlingtonshire (around some of the critical coal-mines that fed London's fires in winter) and Norhamshire (the Border area with Scotland except for Berwick-on-Tweed, which had its own administration)._

MDCXXIX


	15. Old World, New World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the dreadful writings of his Aunt Agnes (amazingly they are good for some things!) Stephen has an unexpected change of country. Once in Scotland he is sounded out by his new neighbour, and not that far into the future one of them will be sentenced to be beheaded. Meanwhile Stephen's brother John sails off for pastures new, over which the middle Amerike definitely does not celebrate (note: definitions of 'definitely does not celebrate' may vary).

**January 1630**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

Do not get him wrong; Stephen Amerike quite liked his parents even if they were arguably the most embarrassing people in the world at times. Except possibly for today, when he fervently wished himself a thousand miles away from them.

His brother Aidan stared at him in confusion.

“Father did not have a stroke?” he asked, clearly nonplussed.

“It might have been better if he had have done”, Stephen said sourly.

“But why?”

The younger Amerike sighed heavily.

“Aunt Agnes sent Mother another of her dreadful stories”, he said, wincing at the memory of that. “One about certain sexual _accoutrements_ that the Romans allegedly used. There was even a leather harness.....”

Aidan glared at him.

“Think of what I have to go home to!" he scowled. “That is bad enough without you making it worse!”

“I would be sorry, but you were not here to suffer along with me so I am not”, Stephen said unsympathetically. “The thing was, Mother was inspired and persuaded Father.... you know.”

His brother just stared at him. Then he got it.

“Ugh! Way too much information!”

Stephen smiled sourly.

“Now that he is nearly forty, Father is not as flexible as he once was….”

“Ste, damnation!”

“Look, you did not have to see them afterwards. They were even wearing costumes....”

“For pity's sake, stop it!”

“Although where Father got a centurion's outfit from in this neck of the woods, Heaven only knows....”

His brother had fled, yelping in horror. Which was quite right and proper; even an unhappy marriage was no excuse for letting Stephen suffer that alone!

MDCXXX

**January 1630**   
**Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**

The consequences of The Roman Rapture Rupture as the young men’s mother almost inevitably called it turned out to be rather more than Stephen being unable to look his parents in the eye (or anywhere else for that matter) for some time afterwards. The doctor recommended a long period of rest for Baron Ellis, and given his occasional poor health he decided to resign his title to Aidan. Which meant, unfortunately from Stephen's point of view, that his terrible sister-in-law moved into Staward Hall and he had to endure her face across the breakfast table every morning. Frankly he wondered how Aidan put up with being married to _that!_

However there was also a way out for him, which given his parents' recent 'antics' he was more than eager to take. His sister-in-law's father had been so grateful that someone had taken his daughter (more like astonished, Stephen had heard one of the servants quip) that as well as the lands in the Allen Valley he had also thrown in a couple of small estates in Scotland. The family had exchanged them one of them for lands that were close to their own holdings in Fifeshire (the other one could not immediately be sold for some legal reason), which meant that someone needed to head north to deal with them and manage the now expanded Scottish lands.

The unpleasant thought crossed Stephen's mind that just now he was heir to the estate, especially as his brother had admitted that he was finding.... That difficult with his wife (had he gone into details, Stephen would have briefly acceded to the title before being convicted of fratricide!). But as Patty always looked at him like something the cat had dragged in having been told not to, he was more than grateful to depart. Before he did so however, he was witness to the king's latest attempts to raise money without parliament. He stared at his brother incredulously.

“That is not on!” he protested. “Becoming a knight is supposed to be an honour, surely?”

“It is another of those ancient laws that has long fallen into disuse but is still on the statute books”, Aidan said glumly. “In times of national emergency – which of course the king gets to define as being when he or his Catholic queen wants more money – then those of a certain level of wealth can be compelled to purchase a knighthood. Just so the queen can have some nice new dresses!”

Stephen shook his head at the king's duplicity. He was seeing even more that this monarch could not be trusted at all, and there might come the day when that would have serious consequences. For when parliament did finally back him into a corner over his need for money – and law of averages; it had to happen eventually - how could they strike a deal with someone so duplicitous?

MDCXXX

**February 1630**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Ye Gods, it was _cold!_ Stephen had thought that being on the northern coast of the peninsula, his new home might be partly sheltered from the German Ocean, but the wind whistled off the Firth of Tay and right up his kilt – his mother had insisted that he wear one 'to fit in', as Aunt Agnes was a Graham (the boy had not been surprised when he had learned that; he could well imagine her as a highland terror cornering some enemy before making the listen to her dreadful writings until they begged for mercy!). The kilt was a blue and green cross-check patterned thing that.... well, it was a good thing that Stephen did not plan on having any more children because certain things ‘down below’ were likely no longer fully functional!

At least the place was pretty much out of the way, for although just forty miles or so north of the capital the journey had necessitated both a long road journey and a boat. The town of Dundee was only a few miles to the north but being on the other side of the silvery Tay made it not that accessible, and besides, the estate had pretty much all he needed. Except perhaps for a handsome soldier currently serving over in Germany.....

Another upside was that he was now just a few miles from his son. The family's expanded lands included the main holding where he lived overlooking the village of Wormit, then the smaller one at Coultra where his son was. Luke would be five this year, which meant that he might start some minor duties as a page at some great house. Stephen had decided to approach the owner of the intervening estate John, Lord Balmerino¹, and ask if he might take the boy on. 

It was still bloody cold!

MDCXXX

**March 1630**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

A quiet if wet month was interrupted with some startling but very welcome news. Not that his new sister-in-law was pregnant (he had chuckled at his brother's 'thank the Lord I am spared That for at least the next six months!'). No, it was the other news from home. His unpleasant younger brother John had decided that the New World was better than the old, and was leaving with the huge fleet sailing next month. There might even be a shipwreck....

Stephen glanced guiltily up at Heaven. Come on, the Good Lord had given him such an unpleasant brother. He could hardly be expected not to think certain happ.... certain thoughts.

There was, he knew, still the danger that the sailing might be called off. Like in far too many other things the king vacillated in his policy towards the Puritans², happy to have them leave the country and stop complaining, but worried that their new states might be successful and then 're-infect' England later. He had cancelled some sailings only to let them go after the merchants had complained, but now that he was ruling without parliament he might decide to start withholding permission again.

Stephen prayed harder than he had ever done in his life!

MDCXXX

**March 1630**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Stephen had a visitor. Lord Balmerino was back from Edinburgh and had decided to call on his new neighbour. He was an unremarkable if solidly built fellow of nearly forty years of age, and was receptive to the idea of taking young Luke on. Although Stephen very soon discerned the reason for his visit.

“I wanted to see how you stand on the two big issues facing this country”, the nobleman said bluntly. “Revocation and religion.”

“As an Englishman not long arrived I do not know the first of those”, Stephen said, “and when it comes to religion I am a Protestant like you. I like the Anglican Church but I think that it still needs reform, and not the sort that the king and Laud have in mind. I also quite admire your Presbyterian Church and its decentralized approach to things.”

“If that idiot Charles Stuart tries to meddle with our Kirk, he will find he had bitten off more than he can chew”, his visitor said bluntly. “And you should know Revocation, for it may affect your family as much as mine.”

“What is it?” Stephen asked.

“The king wants all us barons who got³ lands from the Church at the Reformation to give them back”, the nobleman snorted. “Looking at his Catholic wife and that idiot Laud, we would not even be sure just which Church would end up with them! Failing that, he will of course fine us until we do, the law be damned!”

“I might have expected a strong reaction to such a policy”, Stephen observed.

“The king is lucky enough to have Will Menteith managing things for him just now”, the nobleman said. “He is great at talking his master out of stupid ideas through sheer flannel, so the policy is on hold for now. But not for ever, and we all know that the king needs money what with his not calling an English parliament. If he tries any of the antics I have heard is happening in England and Menteith cannot dissuade him, there may well be a revolt.”

Stephen saw the danger to himself at once. Any family like his with lands both sides of the Border would be compelled to take sides if the Scots rebelled against the king, and might well lose lands one way or another.

“It is difficult”, he said. “I have to support the idea of monarchy – you only have to look at the hopeless state of some of those Italian republics to see the alternative – but this king is something else. Would he really try to get people up here to change their religion?”

“He sees it as 'tidying up a loose end'”, the nobleman scoffed. “He may well tidy himself up if he is not careful. Your brother, the new baron, is said to be a king's man. What are you, sir?”

“I am myself”, Stephen said. “I will support the king – but if he breaks the law, in England or in Scotland, then I will oppose him.”

“I am afraid that it may well come to that”, his visitor sighed.

MDCXXX

_Notes:_   
_1) The population of England's American colonies rose steadily during this time despite the king's restrictions. The civil wars of the following decades actually slowed the colonies' growth as many Puritans recrossed the Pond in order to fight for their beliefs._   
_2) It sounds Italian but is actually Gaelic The 'Bal' element means farmstead, while the 'merino' comes from either Saint Merinach or a word for sea-grass, an important industry as it was the only thing then that acted as fertilizer. The title died out in 1746 when the last of this lord's descendants was executed for his part in the last Jacobite Rising._   
_3) Technically Revocation was a long-established legal device to cope with the habit that Scottish kings had of dying and leaving a minority heir who needed a regency. Naturally the barons used these regencies to enrich themselves, and Revocation was the king's right when he came of age to revoke such 'grants'. Charles naturally tried to extend this to the lands that the barons had seized from the Scottish Church at the Reformation; because that had hit the country when Mary Queen of Scots was out of the country being Queen of France, Scotland unlike England had seen the Crown get no benefit at all, the rich Church lands being shared out among the barons. Oddly enough they were not inclined to give them back because some king who never visited them and had not even bothered to get himself crowned in their kingdom was throwing a hissy-fit. How strange!_

MDCXXX


	16. Words Of Wisdom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stephen settles in to life North of the Border and eventually manages to stop shivering. His dour steward offers some good advice and he is also able to call in on his son Lucius who is progressing well. The king gets a male heir but the country does not go wild with joy and celebration, to his utter bemusement. Why, one might almost think that he was unpopular for some strange and inexplicable reason!

**April 1630**   
**Coultra, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Stephen sighed as he looked out of the window. It was raining. Again.

He glanced across the room where his son was busy working hard at some copying that he had been set by his tutor. To Luke he was just the owner of the estate, come round to check on his tenants. A boring fellow and one oddly tongue-tied when introduced to the boy, who had been clearly grateful to get back to his lessons. Which was pretty damning when you came to think of it.....

The annual reports that Stephen had been receiving had not prepared him for just how like him his son had grown to be, though perhaps fortuitously with his late mother's blond hair. As his son frowned over his copying he noted that the boy's tongue was poking out slightly between his lips, just like he knew his own did at times.

This room was damnably dusty, making his eyes water like that.

The MacDonalds who looked after his son had, very tactfully, 'gone out for a walk' during his visit, leaving Luke to copy out his work with the strange visitor. Stephen wondered just how much longer he might be in Scotland for, or for that matter how much longer he could see his son before the boy started wondering why the estate owner came by to this cottage so often. Some years down the line, he would have to tell the boy the truth.

Life was complicated.

MDCXXX

**May 1630**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Stephen smiled when he read his brother's letter from home. Not only were their parents being... well, being them – 'I cannot walk by the Dower House without hearing That, Ste!' - Patty was finding her pregnancy difficult, apparently not having expected to endure cravings, nausea and rather a lot of extra weight. She had started from a high enough base; Stephen thought perhaps a tad uncharitably.

Then again, perhaps not.

There was also some grumbling from his brother over the tax-farmers, the men who the king allocated tax-collecting in certain areas. He was surprised at that and wondered if it was a problem up here too, so he asked Fraser, the permanently dour steward, about it.

“Lord Menteith has all that in hand for now”, the fellow said firmly. “Good thing for us, though maybe not for him.”

“Why do you say that?” Stephen asked. Scott Fraser was one of those big, slow men whose red hair made him look the archetypal Celtic warrior. He may have been unacquainted with that thing called smiling, but the nobleman had quickly come to respect the fellow for having a firm grasp of what was going on on the estate.

“He is too honest”, the steward said scornfully. “It is taken as read that a tax-farmer will take a large sum of money for himself, but he does not. The other lords despise him for that, and some of them want his job so they can enrich themselves like he will not do.”

“The king would be foolish to lose such a man, then”, Stephen said.

“What with the mess¹ he is making of taxes in England, doubly so”, the steward agreed. “But if any king would be dumb enough, this one might be!”

MDCXXX

**June 1630**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Stephen wondered again how news travelled so fast in this age. Here he was, some four hundred and fifty miles from the English capital, yet he had heard what had happened within two weeks. It probably helped that the road between Burntisland on Fifeshire's southern coast (where ferries connected to Edinburgh) and Ferryport-on-Craig² on the northern coast (where they crossed to Dundee) not only went through his estate but they also owned Ferryport Harbour, so that messages sent between Edinburgh and Aberdeen often reached his ears sooner than might otherwise have been expected. Certainly it was not the state of roads in this country which incredibly were worse than those in England; even the short journey to Coultra was a nightmare!

The news was that the queen had been safely delivered of a son, to be named after his father. That would normally have strengthened the ruling dynasty but Stephen knew that many Protestants would be (quietly) upset that this would block the possible accession of the king's dispossessed sister Elizabeth of Bohemia. The king might be financially supporting her and her large family but many in both England and Scotland were bitter that he did not seem to be lifting a finger to help her husband regain his lost lands in Germany, much as a Continental war was probably the last thing the countries needed just now. Besides, without a parliament the king could not afford one.

Stephen would have put money on the fact that the king and his court would be bemused at everyone not going wild with celebration at the new birth. After all, this was Charles Stuart, whom everyone loved!

MDCXXX

**June 1630**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Sometimes this country, or at least those in charge of it, made Stephen sick!

He had just read the latest news from London and incredibly, his opinion of the king had contrived to sink even lower. A fellow called Alexander Leighton, a doctor of some sort, had been found guilty of seditious libel (i.e. writing something that the king Did Not Like), because while in the Netherlands a few years back he had published a pamphlet attacking the queen. Bad timing on his part as it had turned out, for that had been just when Buckingham had been assassinated and she had become close to her husband. Now Leighton had been punished – and horribly so.

Stephen knew that with so few prisons punishments had to be severe, but this one had reeked of vengeance on behalf of the monarch. Leighton had been sentenced to be publicly whipped, to have the letters 'SS' ('Sower of Sedition') branded on him, and to have one of his ears cut off and his nose slit. He would then be fined and imprisoned for life³, presumably to show what happened to those who upset the king. More likely it would only make them think that perhaps this king needed reining in. Or replacing. 

His steward came in while he was still reading the foul news. It was hard to tell with his face, which usually ran the gamut between scowl and deep scowl, but Stephen sensed that he wanted to say something.

“What is it, Fraser?” he asked. “You may speak truth to me.”

“I know, sir”, the steward replied. “A word to the wise if I may be so bold; I would not speak truth in front of young Cameron.”

One of the grooms, Stephen remembered. A thin, dour fellow who was lazy but had a large family, otherwise he might well have removed him.

“Why him?” he asked.

“He will do anything for money, sir”, the steward said. “Likely even writing to the king to let him know what you are saying about him.”

Stephen nodded.

“Thank you, Fraser”, he said. “I shall see about getting him transferred.”

The steward nodded and left.

MDCXXX

**July 1630**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

The news from the Continent was both good and bad, and Stephen had mixed feelings as he sat on the banks of the Tay and read his friend's latest letter. On the plus side King Gustavus was indeed riding in to aid the Protestants and the Swedish king had taken the town of Stettin on the Baltic, a useful base to push south from. On the downside however Jamie said that he was increasingly worried at the direction the war was taking. The commanders on both sides were, he said, feeling more justified in doing 'whatever it took' to win the war, and while there was hardly a rule-book about what did and did not constitute acceptable behaviour on the battlefield, the religious aspect of this war was turning it ugly.

It also worried Stephen that his friend had been at Stettin and had two more years to serve before.... well, before he surely came home. Soldiering paid well because of the risks involved which was why so many men signed up; after all this time his friend would have enough to buy himself an estate and live comfortably in England. Or even Scotland....

He shook his head sadly. Somehow the idea of his firecracker of a friend living the quiet life as a country landowner seemed about as likely as this useless king deciding to recall parliament. Still, he hoped that he would see his friend come home safely two years hence.

MDCXXX

Ah.

MDCXXX

**August 1630**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Fraser nodded his head approvingly.

“A smart move, sir”, he said. “Cameron will do so much better over on Lord Cowdenbeath's lands.”

Stephen nodded and went back to his letter, only to realize that the steward had not left. He also looked oddly uncertain, which was definitely not like him.

“Is something the matter, Fraser?” he asked patiently.

“I was hoping that you might see your way to taking on a sort of friend of mine as his replacement, sir”, the fellow said. “The boy's father died last week and he has no-one else.”

Stephen stared at him curiously

“Sort of friend?” he asked, wondering just how someone like his steward would have acquired one of those.

“His father was a friend of mine but he was always one for the drink, sir”, Fraser said ruefully. “That was what did for him in the end; he married a woman up Grantown way but she left him after the boy was born. Iain Chatton his name is.”

“Grantown”, Stephen mused. “That is high in the hills south of Inverness. How would he get here?”

The steward was clearly taken aback at his ready acquiescence, but soon rallied.

It's only a hundred miles or so”, he said. “He can manage that; he is about twenty-two years of age so he is fit enough.”

“I will send Peter with a horse for him”, Stephen said. “I trust your judgement, Fraser.”

“Very good, sir.”

MDCXXX

_Notes:_   
_1) Charles made a bad system worse by sometimes borrowing from the tax-farmers himself, then a worse system nightmarish by promising future tax-gathering powers to sometimes the same men in return for money now, thus robbing the future to pay for the present (and his visibly expensive, increasingly Catholic court)._   
_2) Renamed Tayport three years after the railways had reached it in 1848. The North British Railway wanted somewhere with a snappier title on what was in effect its main line north, at least until the Forth and Tay Bridges opened._   
_3) Leighton was punished that November, but in 1640 the Long Parliament brought his home-arrest to and end and paid him some £6,000 (about £1 million or $1.2 million in 2020 terms)._

MDCXXX


	17. Seventeenth Century Attitudes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stephen is definitely not jealous that both his taciturn steward and his Oxfordshire Norse god cousin are 'getting some' and his annoying elder brother Aidan had better cut with the smirking RIGHT NOW! The young nobleman acquires his first nephew and receives a painful reminder that despite all the happiness around and about, they are not really that far out of the Middle Ages.

**September 1630**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Stephen wondered briefly if all that rubbish about parallel universes was true after all. It might explain the strange if not downright bizarre behaviour of his usually reliable steward.

Fraser shuffled his feet awkwardly, and even more unusually was not looking his master in the eye. Something was very wrong here.

“Is it Chatton?” Stephen asked. His steward’s friend’s son had arrived and had seemed to be performing his duties well enough, but then the nobleman had a whole estate to run so he might have missed something.

The steward coughed and turned rather red.

“Sort of, sir”, he muttered.

The behemoth sounded unsure of himself. Stephen stared perplexedly at him.

“What is it?” he asked.

For some time he wondered if the fellow would answer, but finally he managed to speak.

“He is.... young, sir”, he said.

Stephen just stared at him. _That was important how?_ Chatton was as Fraser had said twenty-two years old although admittedly he looked closer to sixteen, but then the steward knew that. The nobleman had been worried enough about that to have his doctor check the fellow over but he had said that he just needed feeding up. So what was the problem?

The steward drew a heavy sigh.

“I am forty-one, sir”, he said dolefully.

Stephen just stared. What on earth did that have to do with anything.... oh. _Oh!_

“You and him?” he guessed. He knew that the steward was unmarried but then he had always put that down to the fellow's nature, and having the sort of attitude that could remove paint. From a wall on the other side of the Tay! 

Apparently not. The nobleman knew that he would have to be careful with his next words.

“What does he say about it?” he asked.

“He is..... he was a bit surprised, my lord”, the steward admitted. “He is willing and he says that he.... likes me but.... he is afraid.”

Stephen knew what he meant. This was the seventeenth century after all, and although everyone knew that such things went on they also knew that the Church, in England as in Scotland, was very firmly against it. Worse, an unfriendly servant might well tattle to the authorities and drop his steward – and he himself if it emerged that he had condoned such behaviour – well and truly in it.

“I think that Chatton might not be fit to be a groom after all”, he said, noting the way in which the steward's eyes widened in alarm. “Perhaps he might do better being trained up to help you, Fraser. I am afraid that he would have to move into your house though; I cannot have a trainee steward sleeping in the stables and there is nowhere else.”

The behemoth let out a sigh, clearly relieved.

“Thank you, my lord!”

MDCXXX

**October 1630**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Stephen was still wondering about those parallel universes, as he had caught his steward smiling the other day. And limping slightly, which had not made him at all jealous. 

Shut up!

He had an unexpected visitor today, his brother Aidan. Stephen was more than a little surprised; surely Patty had to be less than a month away from the next generation of Amerikes?

“Obviously I did not want to come”, his brother said, “but we had a sudden opportunity to buy the Upper Leuchars estate which as you know borders this one to the south. Unfortunately the owner, a fellow called John Stewart of Traquair¹, refused to sign it off to anyone but the head of the family, so I had to come.”

Stephen looked at him shrewdly as they stood by the Tay. His brother sighed.

“All right”, he admitted. “It got me away from Patty, which is wonderful. I cannot stand the woman, but she is it for me whether I like it or not.”

“Is this fellow a relation of the king?” Stephen asked, tactfully changing the subject. His steward knew all the principal Scottish families but he had taken Chatton down to the beach in order to teach the boy how to swim; out of sight of the house of course. And probably to teach him a few other things as well, the lucky fellow.

Still not jealous.

“Only a very distant cousin”, Aidan said, “but he is ambitious and is said to be a friend of the idiot down in London. So not someone I wanted to upset.”

Given the recent Leighton case, Stephen could appreciate that.

“I also had a letter from Thor down in Oxfordshire”, Aidan grinned. “I quote, 'Bren is giving me his full attentions every day now, Lord help me!'”

Stephen sighed. It seemed that every man who wanted it was getting some except him.

“Any news from Jamie?” Aidan asked.

“He was all right when he wrote from Stettin”, Stephen said, “but King Gustavus is advancing ever deeper into Imperial territory. And it is the best part of two years before he can come home. At best!”

Aidan sighed and patted his brother on the back.

“We did get a piece of news from the Continent”, he said, “though not from Germany. Or not directly; the French have pretty much won the Mantuan Succession War but have promised, pinky swear, not to go to war against the Emperor.”

Stephen saw through that at once.

“But not promised not to get the Swedes to do their fighting for them”, he observed. “Damn slippery Frogs!”

MDCXXX

**November 1630**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

As things turned out Aidan made it home only just in time, as Theodric Adrian Amerike arrived nearly two weeks early. Fortunately he was a healthy boy although Stephen smiled when he read his brother's horrified letter that 'Patty wants to try again after just a month, God help me!' She also disliked his choice of a traditional Northumbrian Christian name, which he said had made him worry for at least a couple of seconds.

It warmed Stephen's heart when on that same Sunday the local pastor told him how many people were grateful for his having bought in extra grain, as the harvest that year had been even poorer in Scotland than in England. Stephen had even been able to let his neighbour Lord Balmerino have some as he knew that the fellow would use it to support his poorest people.

The nobleman did have one bad moment when the vicar asked him after the service as to the absence of a certain steward. Stephen had lied and told him that the fellow had sprained his ankle the previous day, which was sort of true. He had sprained some lower body part.

Still not jealous.

MDCXXX

**December 1630**   
**Coultra, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

It seemed doubly inappropriate that Stephen was visiting his son when the news caught up with him. He wondered at first what was so important that his steward had felt the need to bring it to him immediately, and not wait for his return that evening. 

Now, unfortunately, he knew. Mervyn Tuchet, the Earl of Castlehaven over in Ireland, had been put on trial for sodomy as well as helping another man rape his, the earl’s, wife! The nobleman had connections, Stephen knew, but seemingly he had felt that those entitled him to behave in way that was so far beyond the Pale², it was out the other side of Ireland and halfway across the Atlantic! And doubtless his enemies were rubbing their hands at his downfall, including his own son no less.

He smiled as Luke worked patiently at his art; the boy was showing some talent even aged just five (“and a quarter, sir!”; Stephen had been hard put not to laugh at his son's assertiveness). He hoped that the Three Kingdoms could continue to avoid the horrors of the German wars and that his son would never have to bear arms. Perhaps that was an upside of the king's current policy however unpopular it was; he could not afford wars so would strive hard to avoid them. 

The nobleman remembered that Tuchet's wife had been none other than Anne Stanley³, a distant cousin to Great Elizabeth and seen at one time as a potential successor to that monarch; possibly that too had been a factor in his downfall as the Stuarts were very touchy when it came to the succession. Which was odd when one came to think about it, since the current king was in his eyes so perfect that no-one could ever dislike him. Stephen just gave thanks that such things were far above his rank, and he would certainly never be even remotely concerned with them and their associated dangers.

MDCXXX

He was, at things would turn out, rather wrong on that.

MDCXXX

_Notes:_   
_1) John Stewart (b. 1600). A slippery character, he was later made an earl but his title died out in 1861. Traquair House is about seven miles from the town of Peebles in the Borders._   
_2) The Pale was the immediate area around Dublin, and the only one permanently under the fluctuating English control of the island. Hence 'beyond the Pale' became an expression for anything that was going too far. Pale itself was an alternative spelling of pole, as in fence._   
_3) With Elizabeth's unwillingness to name her heir (although most people expected it to be King James the Sixth of Scotland), many eyes turned to her cousin Ferdinando, Earl of Derby (born 1559); he was a great-grandson of Henry The Eighth's sister Mary. He however was uncertain in his religious affiliations so his death in 1594 was suspicious, especially as the Stanleys were also descended from the previous Yorkist dynasty. Also important was that the title and lands were divided among the family; his brother William got the title but his eldest daughter Anne was, under Henry the Eighth's will, the legal claimant to the English throne in 1603._

MDCXXX


	18. Crime And Punishment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being beheaded can be a good thing for some people, even for the recipient – at least when one considers the alternative! There is a horrendous war crime in Germany which only makes Stephen worry even more for his friend, but at least he has a couple more familial visits which is.... possibly a good thing. He also finds something out about his lover – something potentially deadly!

**January 1631**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

On the last day of the month Stephen had another letter from Jamie, detailing the confusing but ultimately successful campaign of the autumn and ending with some promising news, at least for the Protestant cause. The French had finally come out and signed a formal alliance with the Swedes, even if everyone knew there had been an informal one for months now. Hopefully that would bring more of the 'wobbly' Protestant German princes on side now that they knew the strength of the (potential) forces arrayed against their overlord the Catholic Emperor. Stephen doubted that poor Princess Elizabeth would get back her husband's lands, but things in general were looking up. 

The only downside, of course, was that his friend was getting deeper into Germany and into danger. He plotted the places that Jamie mentioned in his letters then fretted at how the Swedes were getting even further from their coastal bases. But then Jamie had said that the logistics as he called them, namely the army's resource planning, were very good and far better than anything he had seen before.

Stephen still worried, though.

MDCXXXI

**April 1631**  
 **Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Stephen had had a letter from his brother. He shook his head at it; Patty was pregnant again and the fact Aidan had written 'YES! NONE OF THAT FOR ANOTHER SIX MONTHS, HALLELUJAH!!!!'.... his brother really could manage some subtlety.

All right, Stephen could empathize. He wondered how their brother John was getting on; he had to have been in the Americas for getting on for a year now, but no-one in the family had expected him to write until he had something to boast about, or needed money. 

Stephen had no idea why his elder brother sometimes called him catty.

MDCXXXI

**May 1631**  
 **Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Stephen had another surprise visitor early that month. His father.

“It is a relief to get away from the house for a bit”, Ellis sighed. “And from your mother; the doctor wanted to give me the all clear the other day and I had to pay him extra to suggest 'only limited activity' for the next six months.”

“I bet Mother took that well”, Stephen smiled.

His father rolled his eyes.

“Let us just say that I am buying some new silken clothes!” 

Stephen scowled at him.

“Any news?” he asked, wishing not for the first time that he were adopted .

“Yes”, his father said. “Castlehaven has been executed; there was no last minute commuting of his sentence. He was fortunate I suppose; as a nobleman he at least got to be beheaded rather than being hung, drawn and quartered¹.”

“His son – not hers – was one of those behind his prosecution”, Stephen said. “I thought that rather odd; surely since his father was attainted he cannot inherit?”

“Most of the lands were in Ireland and are protected by some odd Irish law”, his father explained. “James Touchet only lost his subsidiary English title, which I am sure he can live with. Also your mother is driving me mad – as well as that way! - by cooing over young Theo at every opportunity.”

Stephen looked at him shrewdly.

“Since you did not say it, I assume that Patty takes little interest and does not object?” he asked.

“That is why we put you in charge of our estates up here, because you are so sharp”, his father grinned. “No, she just enjoys lording it over everyone around Staward and sees childbearing as an important but unwelcome part of that. Once she has a couple more healthy children I can see her closing up shop, not that poor Aidan will object. He cannot stand her!”

“What about the German wars?” Stephen asked.

“The Imperial forces are trying to stop the smaller German states from going over to the Swedes”, his father said. “The last thing I heard, just before I left, was that they were besieging some place called Magdeburg, one of the few to declare openly for the Swedes. Poor folks; it must be dreadful having soldiers ravaging the country everywhere.”

That was one of the things that Jamie had mentioned in his letters, namely that because of their superior logistics the Swedes did not have to steal from the areas they were passing through and whose support they were trying to secure. More worryingly he had mentioned that he was headed to that city as part of a scouting unit. Stephen only hoped that he would be careful.

MDCXXXI

**May 1631**  
 **Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

It was the last day of the month when the letter arrived from Germany, and Stephen was immediately worried. It was Jamie's writing but worse even than his usual scrawl. What had happened to him?

Rather a lot, it turned out. He had been involved in the siege of Magdeburg and worse, had been caught as the Imperial troops had busied themselves killing some twenty thousand people, four-fifths of the place's population. Jamie had even been tortured by his captors to reveal information about Swedish plans before an Irish captain had intervened and had saved him; Stephen knew that men from across the Three Kingdoms were fighting on both sides over there, mostly for religious purposes. The letter at least ended with good news; his friend had been exchanged for other prisoners and was now headed back to England, having been paid off.

Stephen shuddered at the cruelty of some men, but at least he could have his friend back soon, and in one piece. All was well again.

MDCXXXI

Ah.

MDCXXXI

**June 1631**  
 **Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

It was less than a week after his letter that Stephen had two more visitors. His cousin Thor and Brennus. Or rather, what was left of his cousin Thor and the fellow clearly responsible for that state of affairs.

His cousin sat down slowly, wincing as certain body parts clearly protested at the abuse. Stephen bit back a smile as Brennus waited until his cousin was down before wrapping a beefy arm around him and nuzzling into his neck. He could sense the behemoth's wariness but did not smirk at his cousin's wrecked state.

He did not smirk _that_ much.

“Shut up!” Thor grumbled. “I do not know which is worse; the fact that he has broken me or that mother saw us off and told me to 'give her all the gen' when we got back'. Knowing my luck she will work it into another of those terrible stories of hers and then add some more of her 'research'. And this bastard actually likes her for all her ideas!”

“That sounds like Aunt Agnes”, Stephen said cheerily, grateful that said relative was safely several hundred miles away. “What brings you here, cousin?”

Thor hesitated.

“Mother thought it best that I come and tell you a few things”, he said. “It concerns Jamie. And do not worry about Bren; he is totally trustworthy.”

“Just like my master is totally flexible!” Brennus muttered. 

Stephen smiled; he had not known his cousin could turn that shade of red.

“Insatiable!” Thor muttered. “Did your mother ever tell you anything about Jamie's real parents, Steve?”

“No, except that she knew his mother in some way and she had asked her to be his guardian if anything happened to them both”, Stephen said. “I know that she died not long after his birth and I presume the father’s passing was what brought him to Staward. Why?”

“They are indeed both dead”, Thor said, “but I am afraid that for your Jamie they left him a potentially tricky legacy. It is well that you and he.... I am sure you know that I will not be asking for details....”

“We're welcome to ideas, though!” Brennus muttered. 

Thor shook his head at the behemoth, but smiled.

“For Jamie to have any sons or daughters of his own might be problematic”, he said.

“Why?” Stephen asked.

“His mother was my mother's sister Susanna, like her an illegitimate daughter of the late John, Earl of Montrose”, Thor said. “That makes him a half-nephew of the current earl, young James.”

“That does not sound much of a problem.”

Thor hesitated.

“They had thought that Susanna was seeing both her steward and her butler at the time”, he said. “James Buchanan and James Barnes, hence the choice of name; I think that they were both distantly related to the Grahams. But the dates of when he must have been conceived mean that it cannot have been either of them.”

“Who was it then?” Stephen asked.

“The late Prince Henry Frederick!”

Stephen gaped. 

“The prince was born in early 1594”, he said slowly, “and Jamie was born in mid-1608. He must have been still thirteen at the time, surely?”

Thor smiled.

“I think that not far from here, there is rather good evidence of just how sexually charged _some_ teenage boys can be?” he said dryly.

It was Stephen's turn to blush. He made a good point, the bastard!

“You know how badly the Stuarts take any rival claimant to the throne”, his cousin said, “especially given how unpopular the current king has become. It is being bruted around London that he insisted on the death of that fool Castlehaven because of Anne Stanley's weak claim to the throne, so you can imagine how he would respond to someone with an arguably better claim to the throne than him. And you would have to agree that James Buchanan is a far more impressive character than Charles Stuart.”

“Not as impressive as you, master”, Brennus muttered. “Any chance of finding us both kilts, sir? Much quicker to remove than trousers!”

Thor just shook his head at the saucy fellow.

MDCXXXI

_Notes:_  
 _1) A gruesome punishment indeed. The quarters referred to the four limbs; the boy would actually be cut into seven parts as the limbs and head were removed from the trunk afterwards. Yes, I know that that makes six, so I will be tactful (for once) and say that the seventh part was removed while the victim was alive and it was restricted to men only... yes. That!_

MDCXXXI


	19. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The small port of Baltimore is all but destroyed by Mohammedan pirates, but Stephen's prime concern is the return of his true love which seems to be taking forever. Although when Jamie finally does make it to Scotland.... someone is in for a surprise!

**June 1631**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Jamie's letter had said that he would he 'home' by the end of the month, which although just four weeks off seemed a lifetime away to an impatient Stephen. He found himself increasingly looking at his steward and his protegee, and wondering if he and Jaime might have what Fraser and Chatton did. They were he knew careful to only be open around him; the rest of the staff chuckled at how impatient the older man was with the younger, threatening all sorts of reprisals when he got things wrong.

Judging from the state of the older man most mornings Stephen was not sure who was getting the worst out of said 'reprisals', especially as Fraser had definitely been hobbling at their last encounter! Thankfully the nobleman was still not the jealous sort, and hopefully he would soon have even less reason to be jealous. Which he was not anyway.

Shut up!

Jamie's letter did not say that he was coming to Scotland, although he mentioned that he expected to see his friend 'some time'. Stephen supposed that the soldier would head to Staward first to pay his respects there, then hopefully come north while the roads were still manageable. He was glad that the master suite in the small house had a large double bed, which he hoped would get plenty of use!

For now he was distracted by another letter from Aidan, who had written to complain about his wife's pregnancy making her even worse than normal (Stephen winced at that) and also to tell him of the king's latest dodge to extract money from his subjects without having to call a parliament. He was using the old forest¹ laws to locate landowners who had encroached on royal lands, sending out officials to scour through local records in order to find those who could be fined. It was, Aidan said, foolhardy in the extreme; the king depended on local men to run local government for him, and annoying them now was unwise as they would hardly rush to his aid in the future when, inevitably, he needed them.

MDCXXXI

**June 1631**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Stephen was annoyed. Jamie had been hoping to sail to Newcastle and go to Staward from there, less than a day's journey, but his latest letter said that the only ship he could get was bound for London. Another week's delay in his schedule; he would not be with Stephen until early July now.

On the other hand, the fact that he mentioned just how much he was looking forward to time in a comfortable bed 'with the one I love'.... Stephen had never blushed so much in his life before!

There was also another small piece of news from London, or at least Ireland. The evil Barbary Pirates had sacked the Munster port of Baltimore, almost wiping it out. Stephen sighed; more men and women carried away to be slaves on the Mohammedan galleys while the king's navy sat in port and just rotted away. It was frankly pathetic!

MDCXXXI

**June 1631**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

It was the last day of the month when Stephen received a letter from his mother. Having first made sure that she had not inserted another manuscript from Aunt Agnes – he always winced when he saw pikemen practising with their weapons after one particular horror! – he opened it and read what she had to say. It was mostly the usual gossip and complaints about her daughter-in-law who, apparently, was contriving to prove people wrong and become even worse, but the last part was... interesting.

_'Jamie arrived today and all I can say is, whoa! He is truly a man now, and in that kilt he is something else! Even Patty batted her eyelashes at him; he scored yet more marks from me by asking her if she had a rogue eyelash!'_

Stephen smiled at that.

_'The boy – the man now – is spending a week here before heading up to you, dear. He should be with you around the tenth or eleventh hopefully. Do not do anything that your father would not do (that should give you plenty of leeway!) and remember that where men are concerned, it involves both give and take. Or at least that is what dear Agnes tells me from her studies on the subject, and from her conversations with dear Brennus. So inventive, that man, and so well-endowed!'_

Stephen just sighed and shook his head. Parents!

_'I was also fortunate enough to catch Jamie bathing in the river – for once my late and unlamented brother got something right in purchasing those perspective glasses, although you have to be in the tower in the morning as the afternoon light is too strong – so I advise you to use the next week or so to buy plenty of cushions. And possibly even a batch of unguent; dear Agnes says there is a special shop in London which stocks several different...'_

Stephen dropped the letter in horror!

MDCXXXI

Yes, he did make a note of the shop's name later. And write to them. So?

MDCXXXI

**July 1631**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Before trying to scar him for life, Stephen's mother had told him that she was sending Jamie in the family carriage (Patty had objected but Aidan had put his foot down so his wife was not talking to him now; presumably she considered that to be some sort of punishment). So Jamie would not have to travel via Edinburgh and face the choppy Forth crossing, going the longer way round via Stirling. Stephen counted off the days of the calendar impatiently, and when the tenth came he was a bag of nerves even though he did not know if his friend would be there that day or the next. 

He definitely caught his steward smirking at him, and resolved to give him and Chatton a week off again some time soon. The last time that they had had away together in a property the estate owned in nearby St. Andrew's, the older man had come back in a terrible state. That would teach him!

It seemed however that the Fates were conspiring against Stephen, for just after dinner he had a message that his son had had a fall and was badly injured. He cursed himself; Luke had long wanted to start riding so he had agreed to loan the most docile pony that he had to the MacDonalds. And now the boy had gone and fallen off the thing!

MDCXXXI

**July 1631**   
**Coultra, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Fortunately the doctor beat him to Coultra and was already bandaging Luke's leg in a splint, despite the boy's protestations. Stephen insisted that he accept it and that he would not be allowed back into the saddle until he was fully recovered, not at all if he did not follow what the doctor said to the letter. The boy gave him the same sort of sharp, calculating look that his mother always said he gave on the very few occasions that he had ever been told off. Which had been hardly ever, in fact.

Stephen wondered how he could hear a disapproving tut from the next country!

Fortunately his luck was in after all, as the road to Wormit passed by the cottage, and the MacDonalds very generously agreed to keep an eye out while he was seeing to his son. Although as he started back he now worried even more that something had befallen his friend and having gotten all the way from Germany, his Winter Soldier might somehow contrive to have a fatal accident just miles from his door. That would be just his luck!

MDCXXXI

**July 1631**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

The next day dawned overcast, with a strong wind blowing up the Tay that felt more midwinter than midsummer. That, Stephen knew, would make the roads treacherous and delay his friend yet more, but he was not to be downhearted for much longer. At just after eleven o' clock Fraser came and told him that a carriage had been seen coming down the road from Balmerino, and that he would be taking the men on it to the kitchen for food and drink before setting them back on their way. Stephen therefore very generously forgave him for that smirk, although he silently resolved to make the fellow's next weekend away with Chatton into a long one.

It seemed to take an age but the carriage finally drew up at the door; Stephen had not gone out to greet it in person because he did not trust himself, even in front of his own family's servants. Moments later there was the sound of footsteps in the hallway, then Fraser opened the door and ushered in the visitor before very pointedly retreating. There was also something that sounded suspiciously like a snigger, the bastard!

Stephen however was more than a little distracted by the vision before him. It had only been six years since he had last seen his friend but the self-assured young boy had grown into a muscular, jet-haired Adonis of a man, dark flashing eyes looking at him almost in amusement. About the only thing the same was his hair, which he still wore far too long (his mother had written that she was resigned to that). 

He was.... beautiful!

He was also suddenly right in front of him, having somehow crossed the room without being noticed. Stephen found himself being pulled into a fierce embrace, then two rough lips found his and he was being kissed very thoroughly. There was a strangled moan from one of them – it may or may not have been from the nobleman – then Jamie's half-open eyes were staring lustfully into his own.

“I so missed you, Ste”, he said, his voice hoarser than Stephen remembered. “Every night, when the other men were off gambling or whoring, I would lie there and think of you hundreds of miles away. My own Captain Amerike!”

“I am not even in the army”, Stephen objected weakly.

“I remember your old moniker”, Jamie smiled. “Ste....”

He stopped. Stephen thought that it was perhaps the first time that he had ever seen his friend look so unsure of himself.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Can I ask you for something?”

Stephen looked at him curiously.

“What?” he asked.

“You see”, Jamie said, “it is like this. All those years fighting, and every chance they got the men were off whoring with any woman who could be paid to open her legs.”

 _Or be forced to at gunpoint_ , Stephen thought wryly. Judging from his friend's expression he was thinking much the same.

“I suppose that knowing you might be dead the next day could make any man act like that”, he said carefully.

Jamie said nothing, seeming to find the floor oddly fascinating. Stephen just stared at him, an impossible thought forming slowly in his mind.

“You.... did not?” he asked incredulously. He had assumed that as a soldier Jamie would.... well, that he just _would_. He had tried not to think much on it as it had always depressed him, but from the redness of his friend's face that might not have been necessary.

“Never", Jamie muttered, seemingly also ashamed at such a thing.

“But six years?” Stephen asked incredulously. _”How?”_

“Because I had you to come home to”, Jamie said. “You have no idea how nervous I was every time I got a letter from home, fearing that you might find someone despite what your mother said about you when I left. I always hoped that you would wait for me, and that when we.... you know...”

Stephen smiled.

“When we waved our arms in the air in some strange manner?” he asked in what was obviously fake innocence. 

His friend rolled his eyes at him.

“I want all of that some day”, he said, “and I drew up a long list of all the things I want to do to you, with you, for you.... seriously Ste, for all their failings, those Continentals can be damn inventive in the bedroom!”

Stephen blushed fiercely.

“But the closer I got to home, the more wrong it seemed”, Jamie went on. “Your mother nailed it as ever; she advised me to take things slowly and write to her 'when I reached the summit'. Six years with the roughest of rough men yet I do not think I have ever been more embarrassed!”

Stephen could relate to that. It was his mother, after all!

“So tonight I just want to hold you”, Jamie said awkwardly, again finding the floor strangely fascinating. “The two of us in one bed, together.”

Stephen smiled.

“I think that that might be arranged”, he said.

MDCXXXI

_Notes:_   
_1) Forest under its Norman meaning, namely a private hunting area for the king that contained all sorts of terrain, not just trees (this is why the likes of the New Forest in Hampshire has so few of them). It is estimated that at their peak, royal forests covered up to one-third of southern England._

MDCXXXI


	20. A Night To Remember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They do the do. Some other stuff happens.

**August 1631**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

Jamie had been home for two weeks now and the two men had slept together every night. Stephen always woke to find his friend behind him, holding him firmly almost as if he was afraid that he might make a run for it during the night. Sometimes Jamie had what seemed to be the start of a nightmare but he would always pull the nobleman closer, and it would swiftly stop.

One of the things that Jamie had insisted on very quickly was training his friend up in the use of weapons. Not the cumbersome arquebus¹ which the soldier deemed more trouble than it was worth but the use of sword and dagger, as Jamie could use both at the same time. He had a target set up for Stephen to practice throwing his skean-dhu², at which skill he was already improving.

“The other fellow having a gun is no use if you can stick him with a dagger while he is halfway through loading”, Jamie had said. “And using two weapons is difficult, but anyone seeing you doing it in combat will instinctively avoid you and pick on someone else.”

Stephen therefore practised hard at his new skills and that particular day when he returned to the house glowing – his idiot friend had gone off for a run – he found his steward waiting for him. Again with a noticeable list. And again with a very slightly smug smile.

Still not jealous.

“What is it, Fraser?” he asked.

“We may have trouble over in Ferryport, sir”, the steward said. 

Unfortunately Stephen knew what he meant. Another rainy summer had pretty much wrecked the harvest, and although he had again brought in grain he knew that his people were fearing the worst. Also there had been reports of riots on other estates across Scotland which he had been keeping a close eye on. 

“Why?” he asked. “Surely the men do not think I would not see them and their families through the winter?”

“That idiot Brown started a rumour that you were going to sell half the grain to Lord Balmerino”, the steward said, scowling.

Stephen sighed. Gresham Brown, a layabout peasant who was always complaining about something or other. Besides which it was all a misunderstanding if likely a deliberate one on Brown’s part; Stephen and his neighbour had 'gone shares' so that they could purchase a large amount of grain more cheaply from the Continent and it was being stored on the Wormit estate before his neighbour came to claim his half.

“May I speak truth, sir?”

Stephen looked at his steward in surprise. He could appreciate the fellow's reticence; not all landowners liked to be told what was what and they would often take action against the cruel people who exposed them to the reality (often of their own idiocy).

“Of course”, he said, not thinking at all of some monarch in distant London (much).

“Brown needs getting rid of.”

 _And you think me too soft to do that_ , Stephen heard even though it was not said. 

“He is married, is he not?” he asked.

“Amazing but some girl was that desperate!” the steward said shortly.

“Tell him that if he leaves the estate of his own volition, then he may have a month's pay and a grain allowance”, Stephen said firmly. “That offer stands for a week. Should he fail to take it, inform him that I will not be best pleased. You might also point out that winter is coming.”

His steward grinned.

MDCXXXI

**September 1631**   
**Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

“Breitenfeld.”

Stephen looked across the dinner-table at his friend. Jamie looked very different from the careworn warrior who had arrived home two months ago; now he kept his facial hair reduces to little more than stubble and had had his hair cut shorter, although still longer than was the fashion. He also looked a lot happier and, if possible, even more handsome.

“What?” Stephen asked.

“King Gustavus has won a major victory over the Emperor”, Jamie grinned. “Even better, the bullying tactics from Vienna have backfired; the Saxons have joined the alliance against them.”

“Things are finally looking up for the Protestant Cause, then”, Stephen said.

“I want to make love to you tonight.”

The nobleman nearly fell off his chair.

“What?” he said in a suddenly high-pitched voice.

“I want to make love to you tonight”, Jamie repeated, as casually as if he had been announcing his intention to go out on another of his mad runs. “Slowly. Seductively. Completely.”

Stephen just stared at him.

MDCXXXI

Fourteen hours what was left of Stephen Roger Amerike was lying in his and Jamie's bed, wondering if he would ever again be capable of movement. His lover had spent Lord alone knew how long worshipping his naked body – seriously, who knew that a man could come from words alone? - and as the soldier kissed his way up Stephen's body the nobleman wondered if he would survive the actual sex. 

“I have something for you.”

Stephen tried to turn his head to look at his friend. Even that hurt.

“What?” he gasped. 

Jamie opened the bedside cabinet drawer and extracted something. When he held them up Stephen saw that they were two rings, one gold and one silver.

“They are both white gold”, Jamie explained, “but the colours vary a lot. I wanted....”

He stopped. The incredible reality of what he was saying only slowly filtered into Stephen's shattered brain.

“You are proposing marriage?” he asked incredulously.

His friend chuckled.

“I do not think that society is quite ready for that, my friend”, he said softly. “But I want as much for the two of us. I did not want to, as they say, seal the deal until I knew that I had your heart as surely as any husband could.”

Stephen was awestruck at that – until he spotted the obvious.

“Wait a minute”, he protested, wincing at the effort of the loud words. “Why do I have to be the wife?”

Jamie chuckled.

“So”, he said. “What do you say, beloved?”

Stephen found himself nodding fervently, his eyes watering as Jamie slipped one of the rings onto his finger. He then donned the other one and dropped onto the bed beside his friend, pulling Stephen round before sliding in behind him.

“AAAIIEEEE!!!!”

“Maybe tomorrow, when you have recovered”, Jamie chuckled as he wrapped his arms around his lover.

Stephen would have complained, but chose instead to pass out.

MDCXXXI

Several aeons later Stephen made the thousand-mile journey from the bedroom via the bathroom to whichever distant land some bastard had moved the dining-room to. And Chatton placing a large pink cushion on his seat was just pushing it!

Talking of pushing it, Jamie certainly had last night. He had very fairly warned his friend beforehand that six years without sex and in the army may have made him a little rough but Stephen, in what had to have been one of the most spectacularly stupid moments in his young life, had just told him to have at it.

He may have scowled at Chatton for that cushion, but Lord he needed it! Certainly more than the smirking soldier sat opposite, looking as if butter would not melt in his mouth!

Ha! Freaking! Ha!

“Just to remind you, sir”, Chatton said with what was nowhere near a straight face, “you said that you would ride over to see Master Luke today.”

Stephen was horrified! In this state, and a long ride over a bumpy track? So not going to happen!

“Was that not tomorrow, Chatton?” Jamie asked with what was glaringly obvious fake innocence.”

“Oh yes” Chatton said airily as he was joined by Fraser. “Sorry, my lord. My mistake.”

“I hate you all!” Stephen ground out. “Just so as you know.”

They were still smirking as he ate, so he ignored them. Bastards!

MDCXXXI

**November 1631**   
**Coultra, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**

“Sir, why are people so upset over a Bible?”

Stephen glared at some smirking soldier over there (who said son had taken to far too well) who was responsible for his son's sudden interest in politics. If he continued to smirk like that, then a certain nobleman would be sleeping alone tonight.

“These people published a new version³ of the Bible but they left some words out”, the nobleman said. “As you know, that can often change the meaning of a whole sentence or even a paragraph, so the government was very cross. They have been forced to withdraw all the books and will likely have to pay a heavy fine too.”

“Will people give the books back?” Luke asked.

“Not likely”, Jamie said unhelpfully. “The things will become collectors' items as a result. Banning books is a terrible idea, no matter what the reason.”

“Why?” Luke asked (it seemed to be his favourite word, Stephen had noted).

“Because if you cannot argue against someone sensibly, then banning their books will just make people want to read those arguments even more”, Jamie said. “It is like telling you that the one thing you must never do is enter a certain room in a new house. Of course you immediately want to go into the room and find out why.”

“I would not”, Luke said virtuously.

Jamie just looked at him. The boy blushed.

“He is really smart, sir”, he said to Stephen. “How did _you_ get to meet him?”

Jamie snorted with laughter, while his friend wondered about riding off and leaving him here!

MDCXXXI

Stephen did not leave his friend behind. Luke did not deserve it, for one thing.

“Adey wrote to me from Staward”, he said as they rode away from the house. “Patty has given birth to a healthy daughter whom he has named Aethelburh.”

“Odd name”, Jamie remarked. “It sounds Saxon.”

“Aidan always was a scholar”, Stephen smiled, “and it is. I suppose all those books keep him away from Patty except for... you know.”

Jamie chuckled.

“Talking of 'you know'”, he said. “I thought of something rather good for Christmas.”

“What?” Stephen asked.

“You finally getting to take me!” Jamie grinned. “Race you!”

And with that he shot off, knowing damn well that his friend's sudden boner meant he was incapable of giving chase. Bastard!

Stephen loved him though.

MDCXXXI

_Notes:_   
_1) A very early type of gun, which lived down to the old joke as to which end was the more dangerous to be at. An instruction manual published on how to operate it listed some twenty-eight steps before firing, so it was of little real use on the battlefield._   
_2) Literally 'hidden knife', part of the traditional Scottish dress (which Stephen's mother still insisted on him wearing, no matter what got frozen as a result!). It was and still is kept in the long socks with the hilt protruding._   
_3) The Wicked or Sinner's Bible. Only one word had been left out, but unluckily it had been the middle one of the Seventh Commandment, 'thou shalt NOT commit adultery. The publishers were fined £300, at least £46,000 ($55,000) at 2021 prices. Fourteen copies are known to still exist; those that have sold have mostly exceeded the modern value of the original fine._

MDCXXXI


End file.
